FK Coda
by PAPhilly
Summary: I was SUPER pissed off by the ending of Coda, okay? Killing Beth, a character who had the potential to fill in the comic-Andrea role in the show, and who Daryl needs most in the world? Killing Dawn, a perfect female villain for the show? Beth STUPIDLY trying to kill Dawn with SCISSORS? Just... UGH. So, I'm writing what I would have done if I had my say. I hope you enjoy my rage.
1. Chapter 1

"And you're _sure _this is right?" Dawn demanded, pedaling along on her machine. It was midday, but the lighting of the windowless room made it seem more like evening.

"Positive, ma'am." Officer Tanaka replied. "They had them out there handcuffed, on their knees like they were gonna execute them."

"Alright." Dawn replied, climbing off the machine and wiping her sweaty face with a towel. She walked out of the room and down the hall.

Beth wasn't sure what she was going to do next. Dawn had the place locked down pretty tight, but she was pretty sure if she could tie enough bedsheets together…

"Beth!" Dawn shouted angrily. "Get out here!"

"Yes?" Beth asked in an innocent voice, concealing some not so innocent thoughts.

"Come with me, we need to talk." Dawn insisted, walking down the hall. Beth was confused, but she _was_ starting to suspect Dawn may have bipolar disorder…

"What do we need to talk about?" Beth asked. She got no answer as Dawn turned and backhanded her across the face with her gun again.

…

Beth awoke in the dark, thanks to the tinted windows of the squad car. She tried to move her arms a bit, but found that she was handcuffed, and apparently Dawn found it necessary to gag her with a rag as well, since she was, frankly, gagged with a rag. The light from the front windshield was almost blinding; it was early noon, the light reflecting off the streets super brightly.

She heard a mumble next to her, and saw Carol there beside her, cuffed and gagged just like herself. Where the hell were they going though?

…

They'd been waiting for a while now. Beads of sweat were dripping down Rick's beard; the burning summer sun was roasting the back of his neck as they waited. Looking down, the two cops- Shepard and Licari- were both adjusting their positions, trying not to let their legs get burned by the hot asphalt as they kneeled with their hands cuffed. _They were so close_…

"Shit." Daryl muttered, adjusting the sights on his rifle, a reliable Marine Corps M82 they'd scavenged from a National Guard armory. He was on the roof of a neighboring parking garage, covering Rick's ass in case things went sour, and it sure looked like they were about to.

Down in the parking lot below, half the goddamn police department was pulling up in an intimidating V formation; seven squad cars disgorging at least twenty cops. Apparently Noah was wrong; they had a _lot_ more than twelve guys. Out of the lead car, Daryl had Dawn Lerner firmly in his sights as two other officers manhandled Beth and Carol out of the back. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her; he was heartbroken when he last saw her.

"My name is Dawn Lerner," she began, walking with her hands on her utility belt, seeing Shepard and Licari kneeling on the ground a couple dozen feet in front of her, "and we're here to talk about you're trade off."

"We just want our people back." Rick implored as two of the officers made Beth and Carol kneel with their hands cuffed behind their backs. For some reason, they both had their mouths gagged. "We'll do this one at a time; Carol for Licari, then Beth for Shepard."

Dawn didn't seem to be listening, instead staring intently at Shepard with a wry look in her eyes. Rick looked down to see Shepard nervously avert her gaze away from Dawn.

"Shepard," Dawn inquired coldly, "did you ever find that cyanide you were looking for?"

Shepard's eyes widened, staring back in disbelief at her superior. "Ma'am?"

"Oh," Dawn scoffed, "don't think I didn't know. You and Lamson tried spiking my coffee with the stuff."

"But…"

"Don't even try; Dr. Edwards told me all about it; how you went into his office and asked how much zyklon it'd take to kill a grown woman."

"I…" Shepard stammered before looking down at the ground in half-shame, half-disbelief.

"You know what?" Dawn announced, looking back at Rick. "You can keep her. I don't even want her around if she's gonna try and stab me in the back every chance she gets."

"Fine then." Rick replied, his hand planted firmly on his Colt. This Dawn sure wasn't the Governor, but she was mighty like him. "We'll trade Licari then."

Dawn nodded, and one officer got Carol to her feet- painfully, Rick noted- and walked her forward while Tyreese brought Licari up. Tyreese and this officer- his nametag read BROWN- made eye contact for a long moment, sizing each other up while the trade went off. Brown walked Licari back to the officers, and Tyreese helped a limping Carol along.

"Now Beth." Rick demanded. So far, so good.

Dawn smirked. "Oh no, you didn't get it. See, we don't want Shepard, and you don't have anyone else from our side, so Beth's ours."

"No." Daryl muttered, his sights firmly planted on Dawn's forehead. "Rick, don't do it."

"Beth's one of ours." Rick implored. "Her sister's with us; her whole _family_! You can't not let us take her home!"

"Oh, I think I can." Dawn mocked, grinning. Beth just kneeled, breathing heavily as she thought out what she was going to do.

"I'll kill her!" Rick shouted, drawing his Colt and cocking it at Shepard's head. She let out a terrified whimper, trembling as the cold barrel touched her skull.

"Rick!" Carol snapped in a feeble voice. "Rick, don't. I'll go back."

"No, you're in no condition." Rick retorted, turning back to Dawn. "If you don't let Beth go, I will shoot her in the head, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself. Do you really want that on your conscience?"

Dawn's smile turned into a laugh as she drew her own gun, a Beretta. "I already told you I didn't even want her!" She callously pointed it at Beth's back and pulled the trigger.

For a moment, everything was quiet, as the gunshot rang through Atlanta's skyline. Beth's eyes widened as she fell to the ground, her clothes getting drenched in blood.

Daryl looked up from his rifle, dipping it ever so slightly as Beth fell face first, hitting the hard asphalt with a light thud.

"_NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!_" Daryl exclaimed, opening up on the officers.


	2. Chapter 2

Abraham was driving again, but that tank was nearing EMPTY very fast. Just his luck; every time something bad went down with the gas tank, that prick Eugene was involved. Lying bastard!

He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment; _everyone_ was pissed about that, and they were depending on him finding some damn gas.

"There should be a gas station up ahead a few miles." Rosita announced, looking up from her roadmap.

Sure enough, a Sunoco station just outside of Atlanta had gas to spare. Well, presumably _every _gas station now had gas to spare, Abraham chuckled, trying desperately to find some good in this day. Still, Eugene kept gnawing away at his thoughts.

"Would you look at that." Tara announced, breathless as she looked at the ruined Atlanta skyline.

"The Air Force sure tore it up in there." Abraham replied, his memories flooding with combat on two continents. "See the napalm marks on the buildings? Reminds me of Basra, back before…"

Tara patted Abraham on the shoulder, walking back to the fire engine and playing with her new yoyo. She was an eccentric one, that was for sure. He thought back, on his old platoon in Basra. It felt like it was yesterday; very vivid as the memories flooded to the front of his mind. In fact, he almost thought he could hear the bullets flying.

"Abraham!" Rosita shouted, shaking his shoulder. "You hear that?"

It took Abraham a minute to come out of the flashback when he realized he was actually _hearing _the gunfire he had been "hearing" earlier.

"It's coming from in the city." Tara noted, clicking the safety off her rifle.

"Whoa, whoa." Abraham commanded. "Watch it with that; it ain't a toy." He turned back to look at the city and saw smoke rising from atop one of the buildings. "Well, let's go check it out, eh?"

…

Dawn was lucky. The .338 Lapua shot slightly off course, blown by a strong gust of wind into her upper arm. She grunted in pain, diving for cover behind one of the squad cars as Rick and Tyreese followed up on Daryl's initial volley. Two other officers weren't as lucky; Daryl was back on the sights in a moment, turning each cop's head into fine, red mist.

The redneck was _royally _pissed off. He had already shot five of the cops; he wasn't sure how many he'd killed but Dawn wasn't one of them and she was at the verymost top of his hit list as he kept up the fire, covering Rick, Carol and Tyreese as they ran off. Those two cops- Shepard and Licari- had dropped to the ground; Shepard was wriggling away from the gunfire to the left while Licari tried breaking the cuffs on a car's fender.

"Daryl! We gotta cover them now!" Sasha exclaimed, firing from her M16. Daryl, out of Lapua, switched over to an M249, aimed right at the engine of the squad car Dawn was hiding behind. Dozens of 5.56mm NATO rounds slammed into the squad car's hood, penetrating and igniting the engine. The car's entire front end exploded in fury, knocking Dawn off her feet behind it from the shockwave.

On the ground below, Rick, Tyreese and Carol were barely holding on, taking cover behind two cars; Rick behind a napalm-burned Honda Civic while Tyreese and Carol hunkered down behind a scorched Ford F150. Rick took potshots at the officers with his Colt, while Tyreese was keeping them at bay with the same M1 Garand he had used to deadly effect in the last battle before the fall of the prison.

"Shit!" Carol exclaimed, her hand reflexively bolting towards her thigh. She had been hit; blood was pooling around her. Tyreese immediately ceased firing and checked her wound.

"It's your artery!" he exclaimed, ripping off his shirt to make a tourniquet. "We gotta stop the bleeding or…"

Suddenly, the gunfire ceased as a loud, blaring siren was heard. Like the cavalry of old, Sergeant Abraham Ford's fire engine roared into action, ramming right through two squad cars before Rosita, Maggie, Tara and Glenn ripped into the officers with their M16s. Tara thought she saw a few running out the way they came, two in handcuffs, but thought nothing of it as she continued the fight against the ones that were sticking around.

Shortly after, Michonne, Maggie and Carl dismounted, Carl shooting one officer between the eyes as he took aim, Michonne impaling another with her katana while Maggie strafed the hell out of a squad car as suppressive fire.

The battle was over thirty seconds after that.

"Where's Beth?" Maggie demanded, a sparkle of hope in her eyes.

Her answer came to her as Daryl ran across the lot, tears flowing from his eyes like a waterfall, falling to his knees to cradle a limp, blonde-haired body.

"No." he sobbed, holding Beth's body close, rocking back and forth in misery. "No, no, no! _No_! No-o-o-o-o." he broke down, sobbing as Maggie came closer, crying.

"D-Daryl, it- it wasn't your f-fault…" she consoled right before Daryl suddenly rose to his feet, hands on his head.

"Shut up!" he screamed, getting in her face. "Just shut up! You didn't give a _shit_ about her! Running off to D.C. like it was your _fucking honeymoon_!"

"Daryl, I…"

"Shut up! You know who took care of her after the prison? _ME!_ You know who taught her how to hunt and shoot? _ME!_ You- you know who _fell in love with her_? _ME YOU BITCH_!"

"Y-You fell in love with her?" Maggie asked in shock, tears flowing down her face.

Daryl threw his arms up in exasperation. "It was right after the prison. I-I was pissed and drunk!"

"You had _sex_ with her?!"

"No! I started shouting at her, and- and she shouted back at me! Nobody's _ever _done that before! I- I always _wanted_ someone to do that! To-to give me a _reason_ I was wrong! And she did that! Hell, she's the last fucking good person on this planet! Or she _was_!" he raged, dropping his crossbow on the spot and falling to the ground, sobbing his heart out.

…

While Daryl was sobbing on the ground, Abraham had walked up to Rick.

"Glad to have you back." Rick announced, patting the soldier on the back.

"Listen," Abraham replied very frankly, "we're out of gas. We were just topping off when we heard the shots and I'm pretty sure these assholes' bullets hit the fuel tank. It's a goddamn miracle we didn't go up like the Fourth of July."

"Alright." Rick sighed. They didn't have enough room for Beth's body; they were gonna need that space for Carol. She was bleeding out, but if they could get her back in time, maybe even go to that hospital, they could save her.

So, Rick had no choice as he walked over to Beth's body, Colt in hand.

"_NOOOOOOOOOOOO!_" Daryl screamed, dive-tackling Rick to the ground, punching him hard in the face over and over again. "_DON'T! FUCKING! TOUCH! HER!_"

"Daryl!" Maggie shouted. It took her, Glenn, Michonne and Abraham combined to pull him off of Rick.

"Get off of me!" he shouted, his crossbow pointed at Rick's head.

"Daryl, it has to be done…" Rick reminded, wiping some blood away from his nose. Daryl was passionate about her; he understood that.

"Then _I'm_ gonna do it." Daryl replied. Maggie gave a protesting look, but didn't say anything out of fear of provoking Daryl again.

"Alright." Rick sighed. "Everyone, let's go. Daryl's gonna take care of this."

Abraham patted Daryl on the back as the rest of the group left the rooftop back to their vehicles. Maggie flinched as she heard a single gunshot.

Daryl came down a few moments later, tears in his eyes.

…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Daryl's rant to Maggie is based on this article on tumblr by the _brilliant_ Dixon Ministry (*cough* Norman Reedus secretly mingling with us commoners *cough*):  post/81696096375/why-bethyl-works-and-why-its-going-to-happen


	3. Chapter 3

"W-Why are we even t-t-talking about this?" Officer Tanaka stammered out, still trembling from the vicious gunfight. "L-L-Let's just l-l-leave them al-lone!"

"No!" Dawn exclaimed, tying her own tourniquet around her shoulder. That asshole sniper had shattered her scapula, but she made it out. "They killed ten of our own! They need to pay for this!"

"What do we do with her?" Officer Licari asked, pointing over at Shepard. She was gagged off in the corner of the convenience store, eyes wide in terror. She _thought _she had gotten away from the danger, but apparently Dawn was serious when she said she didn't want her.

"What would _Gorman_ do?" Dawn inquired in an absolutely frozen, detached voice. Licari grinned viciously, looking over at Shepard, winking as she turned away nervously. "We'll go back to the hospital," Dawn continued, "we'll gather up our weapons, our people, and we'll go out and make those _bastards_ pay. Are you with me?"

No reply.

"_ARE YOU WITH ME_?!" she boomed. _This _time, she got nods from her officers, even a shaky one from Tanaka.

…

Morgan had been walking for a long time. A _long_ time. Ever since Duane was bitten, he had been living in a deluded fantasy, just sailing through life with no shores in sight.

Then Rick came back.

Oh, he remembered him; he had saved his life back when the outbreak was just beginning. He had people with him; that was good. Maybe Rick would remember _him _too.

He was off in pretty much the bare wilderness when he first came across the signs. SANCTUARY FOR ALL, COMMUNITY FOR ALL, THOSE WHO ARRIVE SURVIVE. He wasn't sure what to make of it, until he started hearing them broadcasting messages on his radio. Maybe they were military who survived? Government? Well, he was intending to find out when he got there, until the last sign.

He was still a long ways off when he saw the sign; kudzu had overtaken it in a matter of days. The only word left from the original message was SANCTUARY. Painted over that, above it was a simple word: NO. The rest of it was blotted out. NO SANCTUARY. A simple message, and very concise. In frustration, he remembered ripping off his mask and walking off in the general direction of Atlanta, finding carved into a tree an X in a circle. Well, maybe it'd keep his mind occupied from the obvious disappointment; in a sense, he knew it couldn't be real- nothing had survived the outbreak. So, he followed the trail of symbols across the Georgia forests.

The latest symbol was near an abandoned school. A group had been there before him, but they had been gone at least a few days now; their firepit was cold to the touch, and their backpacks were strewn about. No blood, but if walkers didn't shoo them off, he wasn't sure what could have. He was a bit amused to see a porn magazine lying amongst the clutter.

Morgan perked his ears when he heard the low growl of a walker, walking over silently to check it out. This one was dying; spinal cord probably broken in a thunderous stampede of other walkers.

Out of reverence- these things _did _used to be people, after all- he lowered his hood and took off his sunglasses, bending down with his knife in hand as the walker growled softly.

"Shhhhhhh." He soothed, as if it were still a person, just before he drove the knife into its head.

Walking further, he came to one last symbol, different from the others- more like a sideways L- near a church building.

There were a lot of bodies, scattered towards the front of the building; all were walkers, but he was uninterested as he stepped over them towards the altar, uprighting a fallen cross when he approached.

From his pocket, he withdrew a packet of GooGoo chocolates, a single bullet, and a sapphire pendant. The first was in Duane's pocket when he died, the bullet was just a simple sacrifice to the Lord, and the pendant had been his wife's. He kneeled down and prayed, trying to remember Duane's voice. They would have wanted him to keep his faith; to stay hopeful in a dying world.

Morgan looked around, at all the dead walkers, the clutter, and the crucifix and couldn't help but laugh as he recalled a funny story Duane had once told him about life.

He rose to his feet, walking away from the altar and towards the door. The man stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a marked map lying on the floor before him. Flipping it over to a blood-spattered corner, it read: SORRY I WAS AN ASSHOLE. COME TO WASHINGTON. THE NEW WORLD'S GONNA NEED RICK GRIMES.

Rick was alive; or at least he had been a few days ago.

Well, he should probably get a vehicle; trekking Georgia was one thing, but going to Washington D.C. was a totally different ballgame. Atlanta; they had military vehicles; fuel-efficient ones, and that was what he would be needing.

He didn't remember Atlanta; he never made it there after Duane. Did the military still protect it? Then, thoughts of Terminus shook him out of that fantasy.

…

They were walking again. Daryl was staying _much _farther behind than usual, his eyes still red several days later. That was it. Rock bottom. He couldn't _possibly _get any lower than this. That first day, he thought he had run out of tears; the very next hour proved him wrong.

She was just… gone.

All he could think about was that last night, at the funeral home. The atmosphere was perfect; he might have told her then and there if he hadn't so _stupidly _let those walkers in. She had looked so beautiful, her golden hair done up in a ponytail, wearing that yellow shirt to match. That entire conversation was seared into his memory. That last conversation…

"I'm gonna leave a thank-you note." She had informed, writing down the message on a piece of paper. He was a bit confused, obviously.

"Why?"

"For when they come back… if they come back." She paused as she finished writing a sentence. "Even if they're not coming back still I wanna say thanks."

Daryl looked off, thinking to himself. Well, if he was going to tell her, this seemed like a pretty good time.

"Maybe you don't have to leave that." He suggested, nervous as all hell. "Maybe we stick around here for a while. They come back, we'll just make it work. I mean, they may be _nuts_, but maybe they'll be alright." He shrugged, eating one of the pigs feet to try and play it cool. He saw Beth smiling.

"So you _do _think there are still good people around?" She paused. "What changed your mind?"

And of _course _the question she asked had to be that. Why not "what about walkers?" or "where do we go on runs?" No, she wanted to know why he thought there were still good people. Well, the answer was literally right in front of his face, but he couldn't say that.

"You know." He shrugged, swerving around the question.

"What?" she laughed, amused. What was he hiding? She could read him like a book; he was always terrible with hiding his feelings.

Oh, he wanted to tell her _so _bad; to just scoop her up in his arms and never let go, to start a new life with her. Instead, he just mumbled "Idunno."

"Don't 'idunno.'" Beth insisted, grinning. "What changed your mind?"

Well, she wasn't going to give up, but he still couldn't form the answer in his head. Oh, he knew what he _wanted _to say, to tell her to never leave, to beg her to love him like he did her. But his tongue was tied, so he did the next best thing. He stared at her, deep into her beautiful blue eyes, trying to tell her everything he felt without a single word.

Daryl hadn't known at the time, but Beth's heart was thumping faster than Secretariat when she replied "Oh."

That, that was it. Their last conversation. That stupid dog was out there again a second later; he heard the pots clanging as he opened the door and let in a horde of walkers. He'd never forgive himself for that, though he did remember her last words to him vividly. "I'm not gonna leave you!"

Well, she didn't. Those asshole cops had taken her, taken her from him forever. She didn't want to go, he knew that. But now… now she was dead. Gone forever.

It was at that thought he collapsed on the road and started sobbing again, Carol and Maggie rushing up to him to try and comfort him.

…

Well, that was just one of a long string of hopeful thoughts crushed. The military didn't control Atlanta, although they left plenty of their shit lying around, Morgan thought as he spied a water tower with EVAC HERE spraypainted onto it.

It was a dismal sight; some of the bodies were so thoroughly torched they didn't even turn when they died; all of them were seared to the asphalt. The FEMA truck was scorched as well, completely eviscerated in the flames. To the left, a military tent had one whole side of its canvas burned off as well.

He dispatched the walkers with ease; they couldn't move as he sunk his knife into the back of their skulls, lulling them all the while, like they were still people.

He was trying to start a Humvee when he saw the smoke over the FEMA truck, rising off in the distance. He could come back for the Humvee, but that smoke was going out.

A few blocks ahead was a parking lot with five police squad cars completely peppered with bullet holes; one of them had been blown up. He noticed they weren't covered with scorch marks like all the other vehicles in the city; these had been destroyed much more recently. A few days at the most, judging from the smoke.

There were a lot of bodies. A _lot_ of bodies, all with headshots; most were police. Jesus, the world goes to shit and suddenly _everyone's_ a target, even if they were helping keep you safe just a few years before!

One body stood out among all the others; a young blonde girl, with a bloody bullet hole in her back. Interestingly- apart from being a civilian in an obvious police-on-someone else battle- she _didn't _have a bullet hole anywhere _near _her head, although there was an impact mark right beside her. Well, if she hadn't turned yet, how long ago was this battle? Six hours at the most…

Morgan stopped thinking about that when he heard a little voice groaning on the ground. He looked down to see the girl stirring a bit; she _wasn't _dead.

But she would be soon if he couldn't treat that gaping hole in her back. So, Morgan scooped her up in his arms- carefully, though- and carried her back to that evac site he had scouted earlier, finally getting that Humvee to work.

He wasn't sure where he was going to go to try and treat her, but a nearby GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL sure seemed like a good place to start.


	4. Chapter 4

All that mattered was Daryl. In those final moments, Beth was looking around for him, even when she was being held at gunpoint. Even as she fell to the ground, she was still hoping she would see him come for her. She _meant_ something to him; she realized that on the last night, back in the funeral home, when his very _gaze_ let her know how he truly felt about her. It made her shiver to think about it. She could imagine reuniting with him, running across an open, grassy field, throwing herself into his arms, crying tears of joy as they embraced each other.

The thought left her mind as Beth's eyes slowly fluttered open.

It was dark, far from the green meadow she had just been dreaming of. The sheets felt familiar; almost like… hospital sheets.

She immediately went into defensive mode again when she realized she was back in the hospital. Did Dawn kill them? Rick, Tyreese… Daryl? Were they okay? She tried sitting up, but felt an absolutely _agonizing _pain in her back; she shrieked in pain and when her hands reflexively darted to the spot, she felt a big pad of gauze over her back, and another on her stomach.

The door opened as she quieted down, and a tall, nearly bald black man walked in, carrying a tray with a pork and rice MRE cooked on it, with some Ritz crackers on the side and a cup of either coffee or tea.

"Who are you?" Beth demanded, sitting as far up as she could before the pain set back in.

"Don't move." The man insisted, propping up her pillow and manually cranking the bed up from recline. "You got shot. You're real lucky, you know that? Another half inch and you'd be paralyzed from the waist down."

"I-I remember." Beth replied, rubbing her forehead. It still hurt from when she hit the asphalt. "My friends… are they okay?"

"Who? The police? I don't think so, there's a lot of…"

"No, no, the other people." Beth replied. "Those police guys _kidnapped _me."

"I didn't see anyone alive." The man replied, sighing. "I'm Morgan; I was on my way north when I saw the smoke and found you just barely alive."

"I'm Beth." She replied, extending her hand courteously. Morgan looked down at her hand for a moment, smiling before he shook it. It was his first handshake in almost two years.

"Well, I'm just gonna go do a sweep over for any supplies leftover; whoever was here before cleaned the place out."

"T-They got away?" Beth inquired nervously, again trying to sit up but dropping back down in pain. She'd get used to it eventually.

"Who?"

"Dawn- er, the police guys. They were here; I remember this room."

"Well, they aren't here now." Morgan reassured, closing the door behind him.

He walked down the hall to an office room; probably the head medical office. The nameplate on the desk read LERNER. Well, it might as well say JONES now; it was _Morgan's_ office now, doubling as an armory. It wasn't quite like the setup he had back in King County, but with countless abandoned evac sites and tanks to scavenge, he'd gathered an impressive stash of grenades, rifles and ammunition in the two days since he rescued this Beth girl.

Beth. Beth, Beth, Beth. He wasn't sure what to do with her; she might weigh him down trying to find Rick. She didn't seem that strong; when he was first fixing her up, he noticed scars on her wrists, not to mention that her face showed she had obviously been beaten around a lot in the past few days. Still, he had to be decent. She might have a father, or a husband out there somewhere that wants to see her again. Just like he wanted so badly to see Jenny and Duane again…

Except _she _actually had a chance of seeing her loved ones again.

…

Beth was alone in the room when Morgan came back in with a medical kit.

"Beth," Morgan began almost apologetically, "I've got to replace those bandages."

"Okay." Beth replied, fiddling with her spoon.

"So, uh… you're gonna have to lift that shirt up." _Now_ she got it.

"Oh, okay." She replied, carefully pulling up her shirt so that none of her bra was showing while Morgan carefully pulled the bandages off. Despite his best efforts not to hurt her, she still winced as the bandages came off.

"You healed up nicely, considering I don't know anything about stitches." Morgan noted, deadpan.

"Is it… is it bleeding?" she asked nervously.

"No, no. That was mostly stopped when I found you; the sun just baked it, basically."

"Oh." She sighed in relief.

"The bullet's still in there, though. Well, part of it; it went clean through you, but there's still some shrapnel." Morgan added. "I don't wanna risk taking it out, though; might get you infected with something real nasty."

"That wouldn't be good." Beth replied, smiling weakly.

"Water?"

"Yes please." Beth answered, taking a sip from Morgan's canteen.

"You should probably try and get some rest." Morgan instructed. "I'm not going far; just call if you need me." As he stood to leave, what looked like a pamphlet of paper fell out of his coat and onto the bed.

She looked down to see it was a map; picking it up, she read the little message on the bottom, seeing the path plotted towards the nation's capital.

"Oh, that's…"

"I know him." Beth announced, her eyes lighting up.

"Who? Rick?"

"Yeah; I was part of his group; he was trying to rescue me. Him and Daryl and Carol and Tyreese and…"

"So you know him?" he cut her off. "Where were they heading?"

"I'm not sure; I didn't get to ask." She replied, staring off as she remembered the final confrontation vividly. She shook the thought from her head, smiling. "I'd guess Washington D.C. though."

"Well, I know him too." Morgan replied. "I met him when this all started, and me and him went our separate ways, and now I'm going to find him."

"Why?" Beth asked, bemused.

"I…" Morgan wasn't actually sure why. "He helped me and my boy out when we weren't doing so good; now I'm gonna help him."

"What if he doesn't need help?" Beth asked.

"We'll see." Morgan replied, tucking the map into his pocket again. "Do you need anything? Something to read maybe? Whoever was here had a great set of Clancy novels."

"Which ones?" Beth asked. Her father had always been a Tom Clancy fan.

"Uh, _Red October_, _Sum of all Fears_, _Patriot Games _and _Red Storm Rising._"

"Could you get me _Red Storm Rising_, please?" she asked sweetly.

"Sure. Anything else?"

"A glass of water would be nice, please."

"Alright then." Morgan walked out; he couldn't leave her now. She knew Rick, and apparently enough others in his group. Maybe she wasn't as useless as he had thought…


	5. Chapter 5

Dawn looked out over the parking garage to see the ruinous city below them. It was a depressing sight; she had wanted _so _badly to get a fresh start, for someone to realize they were still there and rescue them, but that _bitch_ Beth took it all away from them. Well, at least she was dead now.

The parking garage in question was right across the street from Grady Memorial, with a perfect vantage point of the rotters in the streets below, ambling mindlessly in and out of the hospital's ground floor. Even in the black of night, she could hear them, shambling around, looking to sink their teeth into them.

A small fire was burning, kindled by the garbage from the streets below, started with a butane lighter. Licari, Tanaka and Dr. Edwards were all huddled around the flame, trying to keep warm on the wintry night. Even in Georgia, it was getting colder as fall came to an end.

"Why are we just waiting around here?" Licari asked, walking up to Dawn. "They killed at least a dozen of our officers, Dawn. Men we worked with for _ten_. _YEARS_. Are you just gonna take that lying down?"

"Shut up!" Dawn snapped quietly, turning to face him. "Of course we're not just gonna take this, but we need to be smart about it." She paused. "Tomorrow, I'll have you and Tanaka head north, see if you can't sniff the bastards out while the rest of us stay here. We'll be in close radio contact; if you see them, we're coming for you."

"What about Shepard?" Licari asked.

"She's staying here. I can't have you getting… distracted while you're playing cat and mouse with those thugs. So go say goodbye now; you're leaving first thing."

Licari grinned, walking over and popping the hatch of a long-abandoned minivan, closing himself in with a traumatized Shepard for at least two hours.

…

"Where are we going?" Beth asked. She had on a light hoodie now, while Morgan had on his heavy coat. She didn't want to damage those stitches, now did she?

"Someplace safe." Morgan replied plainly, traversing the long-since abandoned streets. "We're out of food here, and this is the first time in days you can walk, so I'm getting us out as fast as possible. Plus I don't want any of your friends showing up and trying to kill you or me."

"Good reason to leave." Beth conceded as she followed him, stopping every few feet to touch her bandages, make sure they weren't falling off. Morgan seemed like a good man; she was sure he wouldn't leave her behind when it mattered.

Atlanta sure looked different; she had been there twice when she was very little to see concerts from her favorite bands. Back then, it had seemed like a city of the gods compared to the farm; impossibly tall crystal towers everywhere, highways stretching for miles through the city. Now, now it was just a graveyard.

Off to their left, a small horde of walkers was watching them, but were held at bay by a chained up fence, probably locked in the early phases of the outbreak. Just up the street, an M1 Abrams was abandoned in the street, bloodied remains covering the armoured exterior. She had never seen a tank up close before; sure, there were Humvees at the National Guard armory, but no tanks. Her uncle had driven one in the Gulf War, though. It looked very odd, almost sad in the abandoned streets it was designed to defend. Further up the road, a crashed jet fighter could be seen, a long streak torn out of the street where it impacted.

"Shhh." Morgan commanded, backing slowly behind the corner.

"What is it?" Beth whispered.

"Walkers." Morgan replied ominously. "A whole herd of 'em."

His gaze snapped over to the side when he heard a chain rattling. In abject horror, he and Beth saw as two Atlanta police officers with bolt-cutters snapped the chain, darting off to the sides as the walkers poured out.

"Shit." Morgan muttered. "Run!"

The pair darted around the corner, but apparently Murphy's Law was in full affect that day as they ran headlong into the other swarm of walkers. Beth barely dodged out of one's way before Morgan blew its head off.

"Beth! Over here! Run!" Morgan commanded laconically, waving her over to an abandoned department store.

She sprinted as hard as she could, as fast as she could until she was safe behind the glass doors. But the walkers were coming, pressuring against the glass. They were going to have to move very soon; there was at least a hundred of them out there.

"Quick, out the back!" Morgan shouted, rushing out an emergency exit, shooting three walkers on sight as he cleared the door. Beth wasn't far behind as the glass came shattering down, a hundred walkers hounding after her mercilessly.

"Move it!" Morgan shouted, waving her over to one of the tanks. "Down the hatch, kid!"

He shut it just as the walkers came on them.

…

"Dawn!" Officer Jackson exclaimed, running up to her, panting. "Dawn!"

"Whoa, calm down Jackson." Dawn instructed. "Take a seat, alright? Just breathe, alright. Now what happened?"

"Beth? She's still alive!" Jackson exclaimed in utter shock.

"What?" Dawn demanded.

"Yeah! She was with some black guy; I'd never seen him before. But I swear to you, she was alive! Had a bandage on that bullet hole you put in her."

"You're sure? It could've just been some other people and…"

"She had that yellow shirt, though!" Jackson insisted. "And she definitely had a gunshot wound!"

"Alright, I'll send Holt out looking for them." Dawn sighed. "You look beat, go relax."

"Thank-you, ma'am." Jackson replied, smiling. And of course, by "relaxing," she meant going to the hatchback with Shepard…

"Dawn!" her walkie talkie rang. "Dawn! We found 'em!"

"Licari? Is that you?"

"Yeah; they're just south of Charlotte!"

"North Carolina?"

"Yeah! You guys are coming, right?"

"We're on our way." Dawn replied, cutting the connection. "Guys, pack up; we're heading to Charlotte." She walked over to the hatchback and started pounding on the trunk. "Jackson! Finish up, we're rolling out!"

They could deal with Beth later; right now, two of her officers were behind enemy lines…


	6. Chapter 6

Daryl was a broken man.

What was he supposed to do? The one girl who ever actually made him feel _good_ inside; the _only _woman to _ever_ make him think there were still good people around; was dead. He didn't even get to say goodbye; she was just unceremoniously offed. Why? Just… why? Was it someone's fault? Was God playing a cruel trick on him? Was it his _own_ fault?

Maybe… maybe if he had just shot Dawn then and there, when he had the opportunity to, she would still be alive. Or what if he hadn't stopped looking, on the night she was taken? Or, or maybe if he had never let those stupid walkers into the house in the first place, she'd still be alive.

He had wandered off on his own; the rest of the group was holed up in an abandoned two-story single-family just south of Charlotte, North Carolina, in a little town called Jenkinsville. He said he was going off to scout out a sheriff's office they had passed on the way in, but he really just wandered off into the woods to think to himself.

Most of those thoughts had been depressing; he had broken down in tears twice now, stopping both times only to fight off a few walkers that were coming his way.

She had given him hope, and that stupid bitch Dawn had taken it all away from him in mere _seconds_.

He kept thinking such thoughts for almost an hour until eventually he looped around and found that police station he was supposed to scout out. As he walked through the lot, he immediately put an arrow through the decaying skull of a walker, traversing the completely abandoned lot. No cars were in sight; it looked like this place had been abandoned pretty early on, but there might still have been some guns left inside. So he entered the building.

It was as desolate inside as it was outside; he walked unopposed to the armory and cleaned out a pair of Remingtons, six Glocks, and even an MP5, with so much ammo strapped to him he looked like Rambo as he was walking out.

He couldn't help but think of Beth; he had _wanted _to teach her how to shoot properly after crossbow training, but that last night made that impossible…

As he thought on this, he failed to notice that the parking lot wasn't quite as empty going out as it was when he went in. Daryl didn't notice the Atlanta PD squad car until it was too late, its engines roaring to life and coming at him at seventy miles an hour.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, diving out of the squad car's way as it came at him.

…

"Checkmate." Morgan sighed, hearing the walkers pounding on the outside of the tank.

"So _this_ is what it looks like." Beth muttered to herself, looking around the vehicle's interior. It wasn't actually all that fancy; she was expecting more guns and grenades, but what she got was gray walls. "Can you drive it?"

"Keep dreaming, kid." Morgan replied, looking up nervously.

"Hey," Beth comforted, "they can't get in here. My uncle said these things have armor that can get shot by other tanks and make it without a scratch."

"Yeah, I know." Morgan replied, shaking his head. "Some things you just never get used to."

"I- I could never get used to not taking a shower." Beth replied, semi-embarrassed. "Like, a _real_ shower, with hot water. Not just a cold scrub-down, y'know?"

"I do." Morgan replied, smiling. The incessant pounding on the hull continued on.

"So… what do you miss most about everything? Before this all happened?" Beth rattled on. She was pretty confident that he just needed someone to talk to him to calm him down.

He was quiet for a _long_ time, as if he was thinking of saying something else, but shook his head, smiling, and said "Caribbean food."

"Really?" Beth laughed.

"Really! My wife and I went to the Bahamas on our honeymoon, and _mmph, _the food was delicious." He paused. "What do _you_ miss most? Besides your hot showers?"

"Uh…" Beth knew what the answer was right away, but it wasn't really something she was comfortable telling _anyone_, let alone a total stranger. "Chocolate. I miss chocolate."

Morgan knew right away she wasn't being honest- the girl just couldn't lie- but he let her be. "What brand?"

"Hershey, duh."

Just then, the clanging on the hull stopped.

"I think they're gone." Beth announced hopefully.

"Let me check." Morgan replied, popping the hatch. Sure enough, the walkers were all following a small convoy of police vehicles away from a parking garage just adjacent the hospital.

"Are they gone?" Beth asked.

"Yeah." Morgan replied, looking around one more time before climbing out. "Come on out."

"Where are we going?" she asked as they traversed the lot. Would she _ever_ shut up?

"To that parking garage over there." Morgan pointed. "Those police officers just left in six or seven vehicles, and I wanna see if they left anything behind."

"Dawn was always pretty thorough." Beth replied. "She probably took everything."

"You never know." Morgan replied. "Some people leave behind really valuable things and don't realize it."

"Whatever you say, Morgan."

…

Daryl slowly awoke in the lot with a horrible migraine. He sat up slowly, rubbing his head as he woke. He realized that his guns were gone; both Remingtons, the pistols and the MP5.

"Bastards." Daryl muttered, rising to his feet. Well, at least they left his crossbow; just as well. None of them probably knew how to shoot a crossbow anyway.

He rose to his feet, limping on his right leg. Apparently the assholes had clipped him.

The redneck limped around town a bit longer, sticking to Main Street until he found an abandoned pickup truck with a Winchester 30.06 on the dash. With that tiny victory in his hands, he walked back across town to the group's new base.

…

"Alright kid," Morgan ordered, "you check those cars over there for anything useful while I look over here."

"Over here" was the campsite Dawn had left behind, with some spare wrappers left over from their meal, a butane lighter, a few scrubs strewn about and a toothbrush.

Beth found a few blankets, a loaded Colt 1911, a box of ammunition for said Colt, a box of matches and some… female utilities. She would be needing them soon; the seventh was coming up mighty fast.

Nothing really interesting until she got to a minivan off by the elevator. She popped the hatch open and her eyes widened as she gazed at the face of a female police officer.

"Morgan!" she shouted. He was there in an instant, pointing his own .45 at the cop.

"Who are you?" he demanded. No answer; she didn't even acknowledge him. "_WHO ARE YOU?!_"

Beth caught it, but Morgan missed it in his rage. This police officer- her tag said SHEPARD- was trembling as she stared off into space, sweat beads dripping down her forehead. Morgan stopped shouting at her when she put her hands up to her face and started _sobbing_.


	7. Chapter 7

"What the hell happened to you?" Rick demanded as Daryl walked back into the house. He looked pretty beat up, like he had lost a fight.

"We're being followed." Daryl replied plainly, plopping down next to Maggie. He looked over at her for a moment, then pulled himself back to his feet and walked clear across the room to take a seat on the stairs. He still felt nothing but contempt for her; how could he feel anything else? Maybe if she- and Glenn and Tara- had only stayed behind, they could've taken Rick's plan and just killed them all to get Beth back.

That brought a tear to his eyes; Beth. Even _thinking_ her name pained him now that she was…

"What?" Rick demanded, following after him. "By who?"

Daryl tossed Rick the Winchester. "You see this? I had two Remingtons, six pistols and an MP5 before a cop car ran me down. Knocked me out; when I woke up, they were all gone. I got that on the way back."

"I'll do a sweep of the town if you want." Abraham offered. He was coping with his own losses too, after all. Everyone needed to stay occupied.

"I'll go with you." Daryl replied, groaning as he stood up, only for Rick to sit him back down.

"No, you're too injured. Just go get some rest; I'll go with Abraham." He looked at the soldier. "We need to talk anyway."

"Let's roll out." Abraham replied, taking up his M249, one of the weapons they had salvaged from that National Guard armory a while back.

…

"You alright back there?" Morgan asked, driving along the abandoned highway in his new Humvee.

"Fine." Beth replied, sitting in the back beside Shepard. She still hadn't said a word since they found her; Beth had to lead her out of the van like a puppy just to get her into the vehicle.

They had been on the road for about two hours now, and every half hour, Shepard had just broken down in tears, palming her face as if she was trying to rub a memory away. Beth had tried talking to her, but nothing came of it.

"Do you want some water?" Beth asked, holding up a canteen to her. That was when Shepard first acknowledged her, nodding. Beth handed her the canteen. "Here you go."

She chugged half of it down, like she hadn't had anything to drink in several days.

"W-Where am I?" she asked. That was the first thing she said to them.

"We're a few hours from Atlanta." Beth replied softly. "Do you remember me? Beth? I was in the hospital with you, and Dawn and the other officers."

"Y-Yeah, I remember you." she replied. "You tried to get away and I had to stop you."

"Yeah, that's right." Beth smiled. "No hard feelings, by the way."

Then Shepard smiled. "Where are we going?"

"Washington D.C." Morgan replied immediately.

"My group was heading there." Beth replied. "We're gonna try and meet up with them."

"We're a few days behind though, so we're hauling ass." Morgan added, hitting the gas.

"Why were you so quiet?" Beth asked. "Did something happen?"

Then Shepard started crying again.

…

"And you're _sure_ that's what happened?" Rick asked as Abraham drove over three walkers in the deuce-and-a-half. Abraham always had an affinity for those big trucks; when he saw one untouched at the Armory, he just couldn't resist.

"You think I'd make that up?" Abraham demanded angrily. He paused, laughing. "You know, I was _so _sure Eugene was for real. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Rick replied. "You thought you were doing the right thing, even if he is a fraud."

"What're we gonna do with him?"

"I'm not sure." Rick replied. "We'll deal with that when we get there."

"You think Daryl actually saw that? The cop car?"

"I've known him longer than you, Abraham. He's honest. If he says he saw something, he saw it."

"Whatever you say." Abraham replied, driving around town. No squad cars in sight.

"Maybe they left."

"No. Not if they're thinking like the Iraqis, they didn't." Abraham replied, turning towards the outskirts of town. "It's called hit and run. You shoot, get in a few good hits and then move before we can hit them back or call in support. Or you engage and then run."

"Then what?"

"Then you call in the rest of them." Abraham replied ominously.

Just then, he slammed the brakes as the truck's right front and back tires were shot out by two well-placed shots. The truck skidded to a stop, tipping over into a Ford F150, crashing with a loud thud.

Abraham rubbed his head as he got up, opening the door before unbuckling. Looking down, Rick's eyes were closed, with a drop of blood streaming down his forehead.

"Rick?" Abraham demanded, trying to wake him up. "_Rick_?"

…

They were outside of Charlotte now, approaching a little town called Jenkinsville. Shepard hadn't talked anymore since that first little conversation, just staring at the wall catatonically. Beth was starting to think it wasn't just her personality; _something_ had happened to her. She wasn't sure what, until she remembered Gorman…

"Ah shit." Morgan muttered, slamming the brakes.

"What's wrong?" Beth demanded.

"Get down!" he demanded. Beth immediately curled up into a fetal position; Shepard was already in one, so she didn't need to be told.

"What's happening?" Beth repeated.

"There's three squad cars coming our way." Morgan replied, looking out at the squad cars. They had pulled over; they didn't even seem to notice him from a hundred yards off. Instead, they were inspecting a crashed deuce-and-a-half. It was definitely them, though; he'd recognize an Atlanta PD car from now on for the rest of his life. His eyes suddenly flashed as he got an idea. "Beth, get out of the car."

"What?"

"_Get on the fifty!_" he demanded, pointing up at the gunner's turret. Up atop the vehicle was a Browning M2 machine gun.

Beth simply nodded, rising to her feet and climbing into the seat, pulling the bolt back.

"Oh," Morgan called out, "one more thing." He handed her a pair of earplugs. "You're gonna need these."

With that said, and her earplugs in, Beth opened fire.

…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday; I had a big event with a club at school, so here's _two_ chapters to make up for it. Have a good one!


	8. Chapter 8

She didn't remember much of the next few minutes. The smoke coming from the Browning as she ripped into the squad cars; she actually blew one of them up in a massive explosion that left her hearing bells for the next twenty minutes. Four officers abandoned the remaining vehicles as she kept up the rate of fire, her teeth chattering violently with the gun. That was when the bullets started whizzing back at her, coming from the cops hiding behind a toppled truck.

"_BETH!_" Morgan shouted for the fifth time in a row. "Beth! Get down _now_!"

She probably couldn't even hear him if she wanted to over the rhythmic firing of the machine gun. Looking out, he could see a big man, with red hair and a moustache, climbing out of the abandoned deuce-and-a-half, with a knife in hand. Morgan didn't get to see as the bullets cracked his windshield, but the man then attacked two of the officers from behind.

"Fuck it." Morgan muttered, reversing the Humvee before turning 360 back down the highway, tearing off down the road. Not thirty seconds later, another squad car was on their six, Officer Licari shooting out the window after them.

"Shit!" Beth shouted as a bullet brushed right by her shoulder. Instinctively, she ducked back down into the Humvee, patting her arm down to make sure she wasn't hit.

"You alright?" Morgan asked, turning around.

"Yeah, yeah." Beth smiled. "I'm good!"

"Look out!" Shepard suddenly exclaimed. Morgan slammed the brakes just as the Humvee smashed into the brick wall of a convenience store, breaking through into the building.

…

"Rick!" Abraham shouted, shaking him violently. "Rick! Wake up!"

Rick jolted upright, panting. "What happened?"

"We got run off the road by those cops! Come on!"

Rick unbuckled, almost falling through the window of the sideways truck before climbing back out.

"Why'd they stop?"

"A Humvee drove up and started blasting the hell out of 'em with their fifty cal. Had some blonde girl on the turret."

"Beth?"

"I'm not sure; it looked like her, but it happened real fast." Abraham handed him an M16. "Let's go find out."

…

"I don't like this." Michonne announced, shaking her head. "Those are gunshots; we should be out looking for them."

"Rick said to stay here." Glenn replied forcibly. "Trust me, he can take care of himself."

"Plus we've still got Judith to take care of." Maggie added. "And Carol isn't going anywhere for a while; hell, she might not even make it through the night!"

Suddenly, the house shook at its foundations as an explosion rang out from the southern part of town.

"_Now_ are you with me?" Michonne asked as the gunfire continued.

"Alright," Glenn conceded, picking up a pistol "let's go look for them."

"I'll go with you." Maggie insisted, taking up her own gun.

"Me too." Sasha added. Noah and Rosita followed in suit.

"I'm going to." Carl said, rising to his feet before Michonne sat him back down.

"No, no." she told him. "You're staying here."

"Why? I'm a great fighter and…"

"I know," she whispered, "but besides Tyreese, you're the only _conscious_ person here I trust. Just keep an eye on everyone, alright."

Carl nodded, fuming as the small group walked out of the house and into the abandoned town. Tyreese was feeding Judith, that lying bastard Eugene was still unconscious from when Abraham- rightly- punched his lights out, Daryl was sleeping, Carol was slowly bleeding to death and Father Gabriel was a weakling. The only person there he could depend on in a fight at the moment was Tara.

…

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Beth exclaimed, opening the Humvee's passenger door and climbing out with an M16 in hand, taking cover behind the vehicle. Morgan was passed out in the front seat, and Shepard was still catatonic in the back. She was it; their last line of defense as Licari and Tanaka came at her, firing away.

She wasn't good with a rifle; Rick had taught her how to shoot handguns back on the farm, and she had gotten better during their year or so at the prison, but she was no soldier. Still, she had to shoot back, for her friends.

She hit Tanaka in the shoulder- an incredibly lucky shot that disabled him for the moment- but Licari kept coming. Out of all the officers, she was most scared of him after Dawn and Gorman, and Gorman was dead now. He seemed like the type that had a really broken moral compass; he didn't care about hurting or killing her or anyone else as long as it suited him.

A pair of squad cars showed up, disgorging another four officers- they seemed to have two per car. On paper, Beth had the superior weaponry, but it wasn't helping her much right now as five enemies swarmed her. Still, maybe she had a chance…

Or so she thought, until she heard the groaning.

About thirty walkers were trapped in that convenience store; they would have just withered away if Morgan hadn't so rudely interrupted their slumber by crashing into their lair. So now Beth had _two _enemy forces to deal with, and one wasn't really willing to retreat.

She turned to face the walkers first; she could deal with getting shot, being _eaten_ was another matter entirely. The first five went down with no problem, despite the fact that she was under fire the entire time.

One of the bolder walkers lunged right at her; she drew her knife and sunk it into the thing's skull, turning with her Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 pistol just in time to gun down one of the officers that was just a few feet away from the Humvee.

That was when something she hadn't been expecting happened.

A thunderous crash erupted as Shepard climbed out of the Humvee with a Carl Gustav recoilless rifle and blasted one of the squad cars to smithereens, reloading and aiming into the convenience store.

"_GET DOWN!_" she commanded. Beth dove out of her way just as she pulled the trigger, unleashing a warhead on the walkers. Flaming body parts exploded out in every direction, the pressure wave knocking down the remaining ones.

Beth went around the perimeter, knifing the walkers that tried getting back up, and then went back to Shepard. She peered around the Humvee, but the other squad car was gone, tearing up the street towards the center of town.

"That's, that's awesome." Beth laughed as Shepard dropped the tube onto the ground.

"Those were the only two shells I could find back there." She replied, rubbing her ears. "I hear ringing."

"It'll go away." Beth assured, sitting down beside her.

"That's a nice gun." Shepard complimented, pointing at the pistol. It was a snub-nosed revolver, with a pink handle.

"It was a gift from my friend." Beth replied. "I was with him for a while, and he found this and gave it to me."

"Boyfriend?" Shepard asked, smiling.

"No." Beth sighed.

"Did you want him to be?"

"I dunno." Beth muttered, smiling broadly. "Maybe."

She stood up as the front door of the Humvee swung open.

"Morgan," Beth announced, helping him out, "bit late to the party."

"What? What happened?" he asked, holding an open gash on his forehead.

"Big firefight; come one, I'll find you some ice for that cut."

…

Michonne's little team found Rick and Abraham struggling to make their way back to the house; Rosita and Glenn broke off to help them back.

"God…" Noah muttered as he saw the scene of the fight. A Humvee had crashed through a store's wall, letting out what looked like at least thirty walkers. The smoldering squad car on the street, combined with the obvious whistle of a rocket launcher they had heard earlier, and the aforementioned rocket launcher lying on the ground beside the Humvee gave them all the implication they needed to know what had happened. Yet, both left-side doors were open on the vehicle, so clearly whoever was driving got away.

There was a lot of spent cartridges on the ground, but one stood out among all the others: a tiny little thing, much unlike the river of huge cartridges left behind by the Browning, or the smaller- but still substantially large- ones left by the M16 fire they had heard on the way in. It must have been a small firearm, likely a sidearm. Michonne picked it up and put it in her pocket; it was rare they ever found anything unique among the rubble; and turned around.

"What the hell happened here?" Maggie demanded.

"Whoever fought here was real serious, that's what happened." Michonne replied, taking it all in. "Let's head back; if those cops come knocking, they're gonna need us."

As the group returned to the house, all Maggie could think of was a fleeting remark Abraham had made about a blonde girl on the Humvee turret before leaving…


	9. Chapter 9

Beth, Shepard and Morgan ran as fast as they could; Shepard with an M16 and Beth with a bandolier of grenades around her waist, and her trusty Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 in hand. They would have done better with another man, one that wasn't supporting Morgan as he limped away, and Beth's mind wandered back to Daryl.

"Are we close?" she had asked, on the day before they found that funeral home. She remembered it like it was yesterday; Daryl had been teaching her how to use a crossbow; he had been so patient with her.

"Almost done." He replied plainly, standing right behind her.

"How do you know?"

"The signs are all there," Daryl replied, "Just gotta know how to read 'em."

"What are we tracking?" she had asked, pointing the crossbow forward.

"You tell me." Daryl replied. She looked back at him irritated. "You're the one that wanted to learn."

She looked down, inspecting the ground. "Well, something came through here. It's all zig-zaggy." She smiled, proud of herself for figuring it out. "It's a walker."

"Maybe it's a drunk." Daryl joked. She smiled; she had always loved his sense of humor.

"I'm getting good at this." She beamed, raising the crossbow. "Pretty soon I won't need you at all."

At the time, she hadn't realized what she was actually saying; she _meant_ that she wouldn't need his help fending for herself. But looking back, she realized she _did_ need him, on a different level, beyond just hunting and shooting.

"Over there, quick!" Shepard shouted, pointing to an abandoned office building.

Morgan and Beth ran in, Shepard covering them, standing in an alcove as she ripped into a small horde of walkers with her rifle, slamming the door behind her and shoving a table in front of it as the horde started pounding on the door.

"Beth!" she shouted, checking all through the building for her.

"Up here!" Beth shouted down. Shepard half-sprinted up the stairs to find Beth slumped down in the corner beside Morgan. The poor man had fallen back into unconsciousness; Beth had a cold rag on his wound, but it wasn't helping. "He needs medicine; something for the pain."

"I could go back to the convenience store; they probably have some Advil or Tylenol."

"Alright. I'll stay here with him, make sure he's alright when he wakes up." Beth replied, moving over to sit in an office chair, spinning around as Shepard walked out into the setting sun, gutting three walkers with her knife as soon as she got outside.

All Beth could think about while she waited was those last few nights, before she was taken. With the Bodyguard in her lap, she dreamily thought back. It was right after they had found the funeral home, and Daryl had done a perimeter check.

She had been playing the piano, a fine wooden one from a few decades ago, when Daryl walked in on her.

"This place is nailed up tight." He informed as she turned towards him, putting his crossbow down on the couch. "The only way in is through the front door."

That was when he climbed into an open coffin and snuggled up inside of it.

"What are you doing?" she had asked.

Daryl shook his head. "This is the comfiest bed I've had in years."

"Really?" she smiled. See, this was why she liked him; he just didn't care what people thought of him, and if sleeping in a coffin was comfy, nobody was going to stop him.

"I ain't kidding." He replied as he lied down. "Why don't you go ahead and play some more? Keep singing." She noticed he had a bit of a nervous, slightly embarrassed tone to his voice, but thought nothing of it.

"I thought my singing annoyed you." she retorted. Well, she knew she was no Whitney Houston, but she didn't think she was _that _bad.

"Well, there ain't no jukebox, so…"

She smiled, revolving back around and played the song for him for a few minutes, very quietly. Looking back, it was almost romantic.

"You know what?" Daryl announced as she finished, sitting up and walking over to his bag. "I have something for you."

"What?"

He opened his bag and pulled out a pink-handled revolver. "It's a Smith & Wesson; fine gun."

"Why?"

"What, you think I'm just gonna let you keep my crossbow?" he asked, getting a smile. He walked closer, putting it in her hands "I'll start teaching you how to shoot once you're ankle heals up, okay?"

"Okay." She replied, looking up into his dark eyes. He was _very_ close to her now; her heart was beating out of her chest. "Goodnight, Daryl."

"Goodnight." He replied, walking back over to the coffin and falling asleep almost immediately.

What was that? Was it love? Even looking back, she wasn't sure.

It didn't matter; poor Morgan was still unconscious on the floor, and Shepard hadn't returned yet. Where was she?

…

Shepard had run back up the street to the convenience store, her gun drawn as she entered the dark, long-abandoned building. She was expecting a few more rotters to come her way.

What she got was Licari.

He tackled her from behind one of the aisles, pinning her arms down with his strong hands and sitting atop her legs.

"Hey beautiful." He taunted as she struggled, leaning in and licking her cheek.

"NO!" she cried out. "_Not again!_"

She got her leg in between his and kneed him _hard_ right in the groin. Licari collapsed to the ground in utter agony, giving her just enough time to sprint away with half a bottle of Advil.

She slammed the door shut behind her, eyes wide and panting in fear as she moved the heavy table back against it again. "Not again; not again; not again; _not again_."

"Hey." Beth greeted as Shepard walked in about ten minutes later. Beth didn't know- she had been changing Morgan's bandages for the past few minutes- but Shepard had been crying to herself in a corner, rocking back and forth after she came in.

"I got the Advil." She put the bottle down onto the desk; apparently it used to be a psychiatrist's office. A big bookshelf was on the adjacent wall, with a painting of Naples on another.

"Oh, good!" Beth replied, taking out three from the bottle and putting them in Morgan's mouth, giving him some water. Even unconscious, his body told him to swallow the pills.

A half hour later he grumbled awake.


	10. Chapter 10

"Describe her." Maggie demanded, sitting on a chair in front of Abraham, who was reclining back in an armchair. "The girl you saw on the gun."

"Who? The Humvee gunner?" Abraham asked. Maggie nodded. "I already told you a hundred times, I didn't get a good look at her face; all I know was that the gunner was a blonde chick with a ponytail. That's all I know; that's all I claim to know. Nothing more, nothing less. Now can I _please_ get some shuteye?"

"Fine." Maggie relented, going over to Glenn. He was asleep; what a long day.

Daryl slowly, groggily walked down the stairs a few moments later, stretching the whole way down.

"Daryl," Maggie stood up, looking him dead on, "I just wanted to let you know that you're right. I wasn't looking for Beth; I didn't look for my sister when she needed me. I'm- I'm sorry, okay?"

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Daryl snapped bitterly. "Good luck with _that_, by the way."

He walked out into the kitchen, peeling an apple with his knife, an angry Maggie hot on his heels.

"Hey, I'm trying to make up for it, okay?" she snapped. "I get that you're mad at me, and I'm starting to get that you liked her a bit more than I thought, but I'm trying my best, okay?"

"Trying your best." Daryl hissed, spitting a seed onto the floor. "Wish you would've tried your best finding Beth."

They suddenly heard the sound of glass breaking in the basement, followed by a rustling sound. Daryl ran in and grabbed his crossbow, quietly stalking down the stairs.

He dispatched the first walker with ease, but was rather surprised to see that the second walker wasn't quite a walker. Rather, it was wearing an Atlanta Police Department uniform, a gun raised high above his head.

"Don't shoot!" the officer shouted. "I-I'm just here for supplies."

"You know Dawn Lerner?" Daryl demanded, his crosshairs firmly trained on the cop's head.

"Yeah. How'd you-" He never got to finish as Daryl put an arrow through his head.

"Why Daryl?!" Maggie demanded, running over to the dead cop, seeing if she could do something. "Why'd you kill him?! We could've used him to bargain our way out of this!"

"Oh _right_!" Daryl yelled. "Cause that worked out _so _well last time! Got your sister killed, for Christ's sake!"

"Daryl, just stop it!" Maggie shouted. "You act like you're the only one who cared about her!"

"_I chased down a car for a day and a half looking for her_!" Daryl raged. "What did _you_ do, huh? Huh? Went on your honeymoon, that's what!"

"Hey!" Abraham's voice boomed from upstairs. He hadn't even moved from his recliner. "Shut up down there or I'm gonna come down and settle it for good! Daryl, she's dead! Move on!"

It took a few moments of deafening silence for the true impact of Abraham's words to sink in. That's when he fell to his knees and started crying again.

…

Beth had first watch; Shepard just passed out from sleep deprivation and Morgan was still too injured to do anything if walkers or the officers came back. The lighting was very dim from the gas lamp they had in the center of the room; almost like that last night with Daryl.

She was pretty tired herself- losing almost a quart of blood and getting into a fairly intense firefight would do that to you- but had to stay alert as she heard the walkers shambling about outside of Hogan Psychiatric Consultants.

How long would this all last? The walkers; they were _dead_. They had to decompose _eventually_, but when? In their time at the prison, Rick had explained a bit about what he had learned at the CDC from a doctor Jenner about the virus, but that wasn't much. Everyone was infected, you came back no matter what, and it only took hold of a person's brain stem, not the part that makes humans human, the conscious part. Well, it didn't matter much at the moment; they were out there right now, and weren't going to just drop dead- again, her subconscious added- before sunrise.

It was gonna be a long night.

…

"You see that?" Michonne asked. She was sitting out on top of the garage of the house, climbing out through the window.

"See what?" Rick asked, climbing out after her.

Michonne simply pointed across town to another building, what looked like an office. In the full moon, Rick could read the letters right off the building's roof: HOGAN PSYCHIATRIC CONSULTANT. On the top floor, a single window was illuminated by what looked like the faint glow of a candle.

"It could be their camp." Rick announced, going back inside.

"What are you doing?" Michonne asked, following him in.

"If I was them, I'd be changing positions every night so we wouldn't catch on. Now's our chance; it's their own damn fault for being so careless."

"But…"

"Michonne, they killed Beth and almost killed Daryl; I'm not gonna let them get anyone else." He started shouting through the halls. "Come on! Everybody wake up! Get your weapons; we're moving out!"

"W-Wha…?" Glenn asked, rubbing his eyes.

"We found them." Rick replied, tossing him his rifle. "Where's Daryl?"

He turned to see Daryl already fully loaded with his crossbow, an M249 and a bandolier of ammunition, a fiery rage in his eyes. Downstairs, Carl, Abraham, Rosita, Tara, Sasha, Maggie, Glenn, Noah- even Eugene and Tyreese- were getting ready to fight.

"I-I would much rather stay behind." Father Gabriel pleaded.

"No." Rick replied abruptly. "You say you wanna earn our trust; you're gonna have to fight. Better to learn how now than later."

"But your friend…?"

"I'll stay." Tyreese replied instantly. "Any of them come here, I'm more than able to keep Carol and Judith safe."

"Alright." Rick replied, turning to the group at large. "We've all been through a lot of fights; with the Governor, at Terminus. I'm asking you to go to war- _again_- for something more than our home, though." He paused for effect. "They killed one of our own; Beth. You all knew her; she was just a _kid_; eighteen years old, third youngest in the whole group. They killed her in cold blood, and now we're gonna avenge her."

He looked over and saw Daryl nodding, trying to contain his rage.

"Let's take 'em down."


	11. Chapter 11

As Daryl marched with the group, closing on Dawn's hideout, he couldn't help but think back to that first day after Beth was taken. Right after Joe's group found him. He didn't really trust them, but at least if things went sour he might have some people to throw at the walkers as he got away.

It was very early; he'd been tracking that damn rabbit all morning long. As he fired his crossbow, that asshole Len took his shot from behind him. The damn pussy; bows are for hippie-ass nature wimps. _Crossbows_ are for men. Crossbows helped the Chinese hold the Romans at bay in Parthia; the Spanish used them to conquer half of the Americas; the Crusades were defeated with them; hell, a bomb-throwing crossbow was used on the Western Front in the First World War. Longbows, in his opinion, were for assholes who had too much time on their hands, and history proved it. It took an English longbowman over twenty _years_ to train to be proficient in a bow; it took a crossbowman one _week_. Of course, firearms only took about thirty _seconds_, but they were much louder, and you couldn't well make .45 caliber rounds on the spot; all a crossbow bolt needed was a nice, straight branch from a tree shaved down right.

"What the hell are you doing?" he had demanded, turning to Len after he took the shot.

"Catching me some breakfast." Len had replied smugly.

"That's mine." Daryl insisted, walking over and picking up the rabbit, which now was _very _dead, with two arrows through its heart and neck.

"Well _my _arrow's the one that hit first." Len informed. "That cottontail belongs to _me_."

Daryl ignored him, taking out the arrows and picking up the rabbit. "I've been out here since before the sun came up."

"You see, the rules of the hunt don't mean _jack _out here. Now that rabbit you're holding is claimed, boy." He warned. "Claimed, whether you like it or not. So if I was you I'd hand it over, _now_, before you get to wishing you ain't even got out of bed this morning."

Daryl walked up to him, getting in his face, just glaring at him in utter contempt.

"It ain't yours." Daryl replied.

"You know, I'll bet this _bitch_ got you all messed up, hmm?" he mocked. "Am I right?"

Daryl walked away, trying his best to just ignore him. Beth was no bitch. She was so much more special than just a "bitch."

"Got you walking around here like a dead man, who just lost himself a piece of tail."

Daryl stopped dead in his tracks. That was going too far. She was _not_ just "a piece of tail;" hell, he'd never even _thought _of her as that. And now this asshole Len thought he could just get away with that?

"Tell me something," Len continued, "was it one of the little'uns?"

Mocking her age, that was what drove him over as he unsheathed his knife. He'd pay for those remarks with his life.

"Cause they don't last too long out here." Len shook his head, oblivious to the rage he had invoked deep in Daryl's heart.

Daryl drew his knife _just _as Joe came up, saying "Easy fellas, easy."

The whole thing was over real soon; they split that rabbit in half and Len got killed for being an ass later anyway, but the thing Daryl was thinking of was how _pissed_ he had been at Len for that. That anger was _nothing _compared to what he was feeling right now as he advanced on Dawn's base.

It was a big, red-brick building; the single room lit up at the top told them all they needed to know: someone was up there, and there was a fair chance it was Dawn's group.

And Daryl meant to kill every last one of them.

…

"Beth. Beth. _Beth!_" Shepard snapped, rousing her from her sleep. "Wake up!"

"W-Whaaa…?" Beth asked groggily, rubbing her eyes.

"There's guys coming."

"Where?"

"Outside. They've got a _lot_ of guns."

"The lamp!" Beth facepalmed, cursing herself for forgetting to shut it off.

"What should we do?"

Beth looked at her straight in the eyes. "Well you're the cop! What would _you _do?"

Shepard sighed, muttering something under her breath as she ran out of the room. Beth went over to the window, carefully looking down at the large group below her. She couldn't make anyone out in the darkness, but they sure seemed pissed off.

"Beth," Shepard called out, "wake up Morgan and take him down the emergency exit out the back. I'll hold 'em off."

"What about you?" Beth asked, going over to Morgan and shaking his shoulders.

"I'll be fine. Go!"

"What?!" Morgan snapped, jolting upright, hand on his knife.

"Whoa!" Beth exclaimed. "Calm down Morgan; there's a group of guys with guns coming, so we're gonna slip out the back, okay? Come on, it's alright."

…

The door took a few good kicks to get in; the cops had shoved a desk in front of it. However, as history had shown, even _tanks_ couldn't stop Daryl Dixon from fighting for what he thought was right. And so they entered.

Right away one cop started strafing madly down the stairs at them. Just one, from what Rick could judge, but that one was more than enough to make them all dive for cover.

"Shit!" Tara exclaimed, diving to the right with Sasha and Abraham as the cop raked the first floor with gunfire.

"We don't want to fight!" Gabriel, of all people, suddenly exclaimed, walking clear out into the line of fire, trying to show the cop his collar so that they'd know he was a priest.

"Shut up!" Daryl shouted, firing a crossbow bolt up the stairs and nailing an abstract painting dead in the center.

"Get out of the way!" Abraham shouted, tackling him down as the cop started shooting again. Abraham took two bullets to the shoulder and lower leg in that tackle.

"_BETH, GET MORGAN DOWNSTAIRS NOW!_" the cop suddenly called out.

And _everyone_ just stopped. There was just deafening silence for several moments that went by painfully slow as those words sank in. Rick had listened to that cop Lamson before he killed him; he had went down the names of every cop in that hospital, and there sure as hell wasn't a Beth or a Morgan.

"Daryl no!" Rick shouted as Daryl stormed up the stairs, firing madly and then tackling the cop to the ground. She was the same one they had captured before that firefight in the parking lot.

"They've got Beth!" Daryl shouted back down, turning to Shepard. "You _bitch!_ _WHERE IS SHE?!_"

Shepard recognized him too, but couldn't say anything since he was choking her. He punched her lights out thirty seconds later.

…

"Dawn," Licari announced, walking up to her as she attempted to organize all the clutter around the warehouse they were holed up in, "you might wanna have a look at this."

The pair walked over to the window, Licari handing Dawn a pair of binoculars. Out by a building called HOGAN PSYCHIATRIC CONSULTANT, a single lantern illuminated the top floor of the building well enough for her to see at least ten people standing in a room together, talking. Then the light went out. About thirty seconds later on the ground, a bunch of headlights lit up and moved across town.

"Well, I think I know where we're headed next." Dawn whispered to him, handing him back the binoculars and loading her gun. "We'll attack at dawn, before they're ready."

...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry I didn't update Thursday or Friday; I had to babysit both nights. Here's chapters 10 and 11 to make up for it. Enjoy!


	12. Chapter 12

Shepard awoke with her hands tied in a dark room. Probably a basement, judging from the dripping sound over her head, the cold concrete floor and the faintly visible stairs in the distance. She wasn't scared. She'd already been through the worst kind of hell imaginable and had made it; whatever these people were planning couldn't be worse than…

A single, blinding light flashed on in front of her.

"Where are your people?"

She couldn't see the speaker, but the voice was a man's. She could hear him pulling up a chair behind that light as he waited for her answer.

"I'm not telling you nothing." Shepard replied bitterly. Better to start off aggressive, make them think you were somebody who shouldn't be messed with.

"Come on Shepard, we both know you're not a hardass, so stop acting like it."

Her eyes widened at that; he knew her name. He moved forward, in front of the light, and then she recognized him. She couldn't remember his name, but she knew him all right; the leader of that group that had taken her right before that firefight.

"Remember me?" the man went on. "Rick Grimes; we met in Atlanta." He smiled cunningly. "I guess Dawn took you back after all."

Her heart dropped at the memory; she welled up a bit, but fought it back. "No, no she didn't."

"Really? Well who were you with then? We heard you shouting up there to someone. Who was it?"

Well, she had no leverage now. Might as well come clean.

"Beth." She replied very quickly. "That girl you wanted to trade for."

"That's impossible." Rick replied. "Dawn shot her; we saw it happen."

"Yeah, well tell it to her." Shepard retorted. "Cause she's still breathing."

"Who else were you with? We heard you call out two names on those stairs."

"Some guy I'd never met before; his name's Morgan. Morgan Jones."

"Black guy?"

"Yeah." She replied, looking him in the eyes cautiously. "How'd you know?"

Rick sighed. "He's a friend."

"Where are they now?" another voice asked. A man in his late thirties wielding a crossbow walked forward. He looked like he was trying to sound callous, uncaring, but his eyes gave it away. There was a _massive _twinkle of hope in them, his eyes were like stars with it.

"I don't know." Shepard replied, adjusting her body to a more comfortable position. "I told her to run out the back and didn't see her after that."

"Where might they have gone?" Rick asked, turning back to her. A few months ago, he might have been a bit more upset with Daryl for just blurting out, but with the revelation that he had strong feelings- nobody was really comfortable with it being "love" just yet- he was a bit more accepting. He would have asked the same thing if Lori had gone missing and there was a glimmer of hope…

Abraham came charging down the stairs at that moment. "Rick! You gotta get up here right _now_!"

"Watch her." Rick commanded, Daryl taking his seat as he ran up the stairs.

"Look." Abraham pulled the curtains to the side to reveal three Atlanta PD squad cars outside, headlights on as the remaining officers dismounted.

"Rick, come on out!" Dawn Lerner shouted. "We're gonna have a little talk!"

…

Beth and Morgan hadn't stopped running. The walkers were hot on their heels; they needed a vehicle and _fast_.

"Left!" Morgan panted, sprinting after Beth. She was much faster than he was, not the least because she was about ten years younger than him. "Turn left!"

"Where are we going?" she asked, slowing down so he could catch up.

"Dead ahead!"

Beth saw the helicopter sitting there even in the darkness, beside several green tents and multiple military vehicles. She couldn't read it in the dark, but the entrance sign read FEMA EVAC SITE on the gates.

"Climb up!" Morgan shouted, getting up on top of a Marine Corps LAV-25 armoured fighting vehicle. It was basically a tank on wheels, with a nasty 25mm Bushmaster chain gun instead of a cannon.

"What about a Humvee?!" Beth demanded. She'd never driven one of these things before; now she was sure hoping Morgan had.

"They'll break through!" Morgan shouted back, climbing down the hatch, holding it open for Beth until she got in, slamming it shut after her as the walkers descended on it.

He pushed the ignition button- Marine vehicles didn't have keys for quicker deployments- and rolled the tank out of the gates, knocking them down and impaling several walkers on the fence as the vehicle shook them off.

"We're gonna double back to the tower, see if Shepard made it out, alright?" Morgan informed. "You know how to work the gun, right?"

"No." Beth replied flatly.

"Alright, well that toggle stick there is how you aim; those cameras are your viewfinder. If your target's on that center one, the one with the red ring around it, you're clear to shoot."

"Where you a Marine?" Beth asked.

Morgan laughed. "No. The end of the world sure gives you an awful lot of free time, though."

They drove far enough to see the light going out up the tower; Shepard hadn't made it out. Morgan stopped a block away and saw three cars driving off; not squad cars though.

"Maybe they switched to throw us off." Beth suggested.

"Yeah, or maybe we blew them all up." Morgan replied, shaking his head. "Let's go find out."

They followed those cars from about three blocks off, no headlights, until they got to a house on the north side of town. Charlotte's devastated skyline was just visible in the background, the napalm torched buildings a depressing view as the sun slowly rose over North Carolina.

"Whoa!" Morgan exclaimed as three squad cars sped right by them. Well, he couldn't really blame them for being so reckless; to them, the LAV probably died a long time ago. They had no idea she still had some fight left in her.

"That's them!" Beth shouted, turreting towards them.

"Wait!" Morgan commanded. "Don't shoot! I wanna see where this is going…"

He slowly inched the LAV forward to about a block away; nobody noticed. The cops seemed to be much more focused on whoever was in the house than on their flanks.

"Let me take these guys out, Morgan!" Beth demanded; the sensors were practically screaming at her to shoot.

"Just wait a minute." Morgan insisted, watching through the night vision camera as Dawn Lerner got out of her squad car.

A few moments later, his eyes widened as a face he would _never _forget walked out onto the patio of the house. Rick Grimes.

He was talking to her; the sensors couldn't pick up the conversation, but it sure looked heated. Rick threw his hands up just as Dawn drew her gun at him.

"Fuck it!" Morgan shouted, flooring the gas and taking the LAV up to its top speed of sixty-two miles an hour in five seconds flat.

…

"Get down!" Abraham shouted, tackling Rick to the ground as the LAV rammed the formation of squad cars. The first one, on the right, was completely toppled on its left side, bent almost in half by the LAV's v-shaped hull. That one pummeled over the middle car- Dawn's car- and _that _one then went flying and flipped over in the air to land on top of the third one. An altogether fantastic display of the sheer durability of United States military hardware even two years into an apocalypse; the LAV had barely a dent to show for the damage it had just inflicted.

Four officers were killed almost immediately; two were crushed in their own vehicle, another was rammed dead on by the LAV. Just an absolute bloodbath for Dawn's forces; only she and Licari were left even standing. Tanaka was cut in half by the LAV's front wheels; he was left staring at the starry sky gasping for breath in his final moments.

…

"What're you doing?!" Beth demanded.

"Attacking!" Morgan replied plainly.

It was too ambiguous; Beth knew that they were attacking but wasn't sure _who_ they were attacking. So, she turreted the Bushmaster over to the first floor of the house and _ripped_ into it.

"NOOOO!" Morgan shouted, turning towards her, but it was no use. She was already in battle mode, high on adrenaline. The only thing that could stop her now was if the gun jammed.

…

"Holy shit!" Daryl exclaimed, ducking down as the flames engulfed the first floor. What the hell was going on up there?

Upstairs, everything had gone to hell. Shrapnel was flying around along with the bullets; white hot lead _everywhere_ that turned a suburban family home into the worst hell imaginable in under two seconds. Gabriel took a round to the chest right from the start as he tried to dive out of the way, punching a clear hole through his chest. Eugene was still unconscious and couldn't evade as he was reduced to a bloody smear on the table.

Tyreese had dove to the ground, Judith in hand when the bullets first started flying and was spared with her, although his clothes were almost torched in the flames. Tara's left leg was skewered by one of the bullets; she collapsed to the ground screaming as more bullets flew in. Noah took multiple rounds to the chest and died on the spot. Just… utter carnage. The hardwood floor soaked up the blood as the brutal barrage ceased.

…

Beth was smiling to herself; then she started laughing. "Did you see _that_!?"

"What the hell did you do?!" Morgan exclaimed, popping the hatch and running out, blasting a walker in the face with his revolver as he ran up to the house. Beth peered her head out, smelling the gunpowder in the air. What was he so pissed about?

Then she saw who was in the door.

"Daryl!"


	13. Chapter 13

It was like he had been shot. No, check that, like he had been hit by a train. _That _was the shock Daryl felt as he saw Beth peer her head out of that tank. He didn't even hear her shout his name; he heard utter silence as she jumped down and started running towards him. He didn't realize he had started running to her either, until he was embracing her tightly in his arms, crying.

"Daryl, I thought I'd never see you again-mmhm!"

He planted a _long_, passionate kiss on her lips, holding her tightly, almost like if he let go she'd leave him again forever.

Beth hadn't been expecting it at all. She was happy to see him, joyful even. But her heart skipped a beat when he started kissing her, and she knew immediately that she _was_ in love. And then she started kissing back, moving her hand up to his cheek to stroke it as the two smooched right there in the street, in full view of everyone, and neither cared.

"Beth!" Maggie shouted, running down to her and hugging her once Daryl broke off. "I missed you so much; I thought you were dead."

Beth thought she heard Daryl mutter something under his breath about Washington D.C. but wrote it off. Nothing was going to stop her from celebrating.

Until the girl walked out of the house.

Tara had a glazed look in her eyes as she tried walking down those stairs; her lower left leg was only hanging on by the tendon; she slumped down on the top step and just stared at her wound, mouth agape.

"Oh my God!" Beth exclaimed, running over to her. She had never seen her before; all she knew was she needed help and fast. "Do we have any bandages?!"

"Yeah." Tyreese announced, standing in the doorway. He rushed off to go get the medical kit while Rick, Daryl, Maggie and another man she had never seen before stood around her.

"Did I get them?" Beth asked, elevating the girl's leg to slow the blood flow.

"Who?" Maggie asked.

"The cops! Dawn! I thought they had you all trapped in there. Did I get them?"

Rick looked off to the side, thinking about the _massive_ error she had made. "Beth, nobody had us trapped in there."

It took a moment for that to sink into her brain, her heart sinking. "What?"

"You just shot your own side." Rick replied in a far-off voice.

"Rick, it was an accident." Daryl assured, getting in between him and Beth. He was still pretty certain Rick was a good man, but the way he took out Joe and his group, and Lamson, and insisting on going back to kill the Termites, he had to be sure. _Nobody_ was _ever_ touching Beth ever again. Not while he was breathing.

Rick rubbed his face from the forehead down. "Yeah, I know that." He turned to see Glenn coming out of the house, covered in smoky ashes.

"Gabriel, Eugene and Noah are all gone." He announced, slumping down onto the stairs, abruptly throwing up over the side of the steps when he saw Tara's hideous wound.

"Where's Judith?" Rick demanded, facing him.

"She's fine; she was upstairs. Only the first floor got torn up."

"Noah?" Beth asked in almost a whisper. _She had shot her own people_…

"Yeah; tall black kid. He's the only reason we even knew they had you."

"Oh God." Beth whispered, trying and rapidly failing to maintain her composure as her eyes welled up. "Oh God. Oh God. Oh God."

She broke down sobbing on those steps as Tyreese came out with the bandages.

…

Dawn was just staring at the ground. How had it all happened?

The only ones left with her were Licari and Dr. Edwards. Everyone else had fled before they got back from that first firefight; Edwards was too terrified to leave. So he stayed; all the better too, since he was the only one of them with medical training. Right now he was sewing up an open wound on Licari's upper arm.

"Dawn, what the hell happened out there?" Edwards asked, holding the needle and thread steady as Licari winced.

"Don't. Ask." Dawn replied in a low voice, shaking her head. "I need some air."

She walked out of the warehouse and into the moonlight; a chainlink fence further out was keeping the rotters at bay, growling and snarling at her as they tried to reach in.

It had all happened in just a few days; going from the hope of being saved by the remaining military to the grim realization that they were nowhere close to anywhere they might be rescued. She still clung to that belief; there had to be _somebody _still out there, working to fight for a cure; probably out west, maybe up north. Could Canada have been hit as bad? She remembered hearing rumors on the news when the outbreak first began about China and France being close to something.

It was about then that she heard the car's engine. It was a fine car, a vintage 1968 Pontiac GTO, engine revving loudly as it parked. A tall, muscular man climbed out, dragging a baseball bat on the ground as he walked over to the fence. He started bashing in the rotters' heads before they even knew he was there, punting them off like he was swinging at a fastball.

"Oh! They just go down too easy!" the man laughed, hefting the bat up into his hands. On closer inspection it was covered in barbed wire.

"Who are you?" Dawn asked, hand on her gun.

"You know, they're getting weaker. It's not as fun killing them when they go down that quick now."

"_Who are you_?" Dawn demanded, drawing and aiming for his head.

"Oh, feisty." The man mocked, raising his hands. "What, were you a cop or something?"

"I _am_ a cop." Dawn retorted. "Who. Are. You?"

"I should've guessed from the uniform; it looks good on you, sugar."

"I'll give you one last chance." Dawn warned, flicking the safety off.

"You are a cop, that's for sure." The man rattled on, continually dodging her question.

Dawn took a single shot, right between his feet. The man looked down to see the impact right beside his shoe. She had been _this_ close to blasting his right foot off.

"Oh, I like you." He was flirting with her now. "The name's Negan. And you are…?"

"Dawn."

"Well Dawn, what do you say you come back with me, eh? I've got a big group; lotta guns. We'll keep you real safe, how's that sounding?"

Dawn kept her aim, turning her head back to the warehouse. "Licari! Edwards! Get out here!" She turned to Negan again. "Room for two more?"

"Why not." Negan replied.

"What's wrong?" Licari asked, rushing out with his gun raised. Edwards had finished the surgery.

"We're going with this guy; says he's got a group."

"You sure about that?" Licari whispered, casting a wary eye on this Negan character

"Positive. And if he _isn't_ being honest, we have the firepower to take him down anyways."

"Fine." Licari replied, holstering his gun.

"Let's go!" Negan hollered, waving them over to the GTO.

They headed north, towards Negan's group in a small town outside of the nation's former capitol city.

…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As a rule, I don't do original characters unless they're absolutely necessary for the story. Negan is NOT an original character, as anyone who's read the comics undoubtedly knows. That's all, thanks!


	14. Chapter 14

Beth was just _sobbing_ as Rick, Tyreese, Daryl and Morgan finished digging the holes. Noah was lowered in first; the sheet covering his body was soaked with blood. He had come back for her; Daryl had told her that he was actually going to go it alone to save her until he met him and Carol. That just made her even sadder; she was crying her eyes out, Daryl holding her close, trying to comfort her.

Then Gabriel was lowered in. She had never met him before, so it hurt a little less, but she still couldn't forgive herself for killing an innocent _priest_. Wasn't that a sin? Even if it was just a horrible, _horrible_ accident.

She had pretty much expended all of her tears by the time Eugene was lowered in; his remains were much more torn up and they had to put a shoebox in with him for the rest of his body. Abraham had dug that hole by himself; insisted on it, even. There was something in his eyes; a mixture of great sadness and rage, as he shoveled the dirt onto the corpse, like he was trying to put something behind him. She was a bit too sad to ask him about it at the moment, but in time she was certain it would come up.

"I'm so sorry." She sobbed, hugging Abraham as he finished filling in Eugene's grave. "I-I didn't know they weren't in there and…"

"It's okay." Abraham replied gruffly. She had taken care of a problem; she had avenged all the people who died trying to get Eugene to D.C.

"No, it's not!" Beth insisted, her lips quivering as she tried to regain composure. "I _killed_ him! I killed him, and that's _not_ okay! I'm sorry!"

"Beth, come over here." Maggie suggested, trying to take the heat off of Abraham, who judging from the look on his face obviously had no clue how to deal with her.

They had a small funeral service right afterwards; Beth read a psalm from the Bible she had found on Gabriel, and that was that. They geared up and moved out twenty minutes after the service ended.

…

"You know Rick," Abraham started after a ride in mostly silence, "I'm not even mad at Eugene."

"Why not?" Rick asked, genuinely curious. Everything about Abraham he knew thus far made him think he would be _pissed _at Eugene.

"I mean, I'm mad at what he did, but I'm more mad at myself." He sighed. "I should've known right from the start, but I needed some hope. My wife and kids… they got them; I was about to eat my damn gun when he showed up. Just… I needed some hope. And now, _so_ many people are dead, because I was so selfish. Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk, Josephine… Bob; they're all dead because of _me_."

"Don't beat yourself up." Rick replied. "A hell of a lot of people are _alive_ because of you too. We wouldn't have won that fight if you didn't show up."

"Where are we going?" Beth asked from the backseat. She was crammed between Daryl and Maggie, and for some reason she felt that they weren't getting along, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

"We were gonna head up to Charlotte." Rick replied. "See if maybe we could find some supplies; food and ammo."

Beth thought for a long minute before replying "Noah said he was heading to a group in Richmond before Dawn got him."

Abraham and Rick looked at each other.

"Richmond, huh?"

"Yeah; he and his dad were headed there when Dawn got them. His uncle was there; I'm not sure if it's still there, but it might be worth a look."

"Alright," Rick smiled, "Richmond it is."

…

That ride went on for a long while; they passed several small herds of walkers on the way, but didn't stop. Morgan had point, driving that LAV ahead of the rest of them with Rosita (who, unlike Beth, was actually trained as a gunner) and Michonne, who had the hand-to-hand experience just in case things went sour.

Beth was, understandably, _very _tired. She was leaning up against Daryl's shoulder, eyes closed. He looked down at her, smiling, and moved his arm so that it was around her and she was laying on his chest.

"Mmmm…" Beth sighed in exhaustion as he massaged her shoulder. She was fast asleep not three minutes later, since, again, getting _shot_ and then waging _war_ and then suffering complete heartshatter is bound to make one a bit drowsy. Daryl planted a kiss on the top of her head once he was sure she was out. Maggie recoiled a bit at that.

"What?" he snapped, rubbing Beth's head.

"Daryl, you're in your forties!" Maggie argued in a whispering voice. "She's _eighteen!_"

"I'm thirty-eight!" Daryl retorted. "And if I remember right, you said so yourself on the farm that Hershel was in his fifties when he married your mom, and she was twenty years apart!"

"That was different, they were both adults."

"What? Eighteen isn't adult for you? If the world hadn't gone to hell she'd be voting for president right now!"

"Daryl, it's _creepy_!"

"You don't know nothing!"

"Hey!" Abraham snapped, turning to face them. "Daryl, I know you like her a lot. Maggie, I get she's your sister. We'll figure this out when we get to Richmond, now just let the poor girl sleep for Christ's sake! She got _shot_!"

Maggie crossed her arms and looked out the window the remainder of the ride; Daryl looked down at Beth, wondering about what Maggie had said. Was it "creepy?" He was no pedophile, that was damned sure! But Beth was an adult now; or at least, she wasn't the naïve girl he'd first met on the farm. But Maggie had a point; she _was_ a lot younger than him. He only wanted her to be happy, though. Not even happy; he wanted her to be _safe_. Safe at the very least; _then_ happy.

No, Maggie was wrong. She didn't get it; she didn't understand how Beth made him feel. Before Beth, he was just an angry, cardboard cutout of your stereotypical redneck. Maybe a bit more productive than most rednecks, but still bottom of the barrel. But when he was around her, he actually felt good about himself; she made him feel like what he was doing was _worth it_.

She was smiling; she was so cute when she was sleeping. Maybe he'd get around to asking her when she woke up. Yeah, he told himself, he'll ask her when she wakes up.

He didn't.


	15. Chapter 15

Richmond was a depressing sight. Beth thought Atlanta had been bad, with the napalm scorches on the buildings and the streets, but _Richmond_? The military had shown no mercy here; it must've been _really_ bad; all that remained were concrete shells of buildings. She actually thought it resembled a picture of Berlin or Dresden after World War II. Just… devastated.

Well, there _had _been plenty of military bases nearby, she knew. She couldn't name any, but with Washington D.C. so close, the army probably thought Richmond would be an acceptable loss over the capital. It looked as though they hadn't destroyed the city outright; there _were_ military vehicles, tanks and even a few crashed helicopters in the streets; they _had _tried to fight back.

Obviously, it hadn't worked out too well.

At least there weren't any walkers though; they had all long moved out in search of more food. Why did they even _need_ to eat? That thought had crossed her mind at least a hundred times after Rick informed them that they were actually _dead_, not just sick people. If they didn't have a functioning digestive system, why did they need to eat? Did they actually eat? Or were they just biting people to spread the virus? Then again, in the final moments of the prison battle, she had seen walkers devouring the fallen on both sides.

It didn't matter much; since Eugene was (as she had found out after prodding everyone enough) lying about being a government scientist, nobody was going to find out why ever now. Well, that was if D.C. wasn't still up; she still had hope. Eugene might have been a liar, but that didn't mean the city wasn't still functional.

She was sitting next to Daryl again; he was really the only one besides Maggie she felt _truly _at ease around, and Maggie was over with Glenn. She had literally just met Abraham, Rosita and Tara- who, a small part of her mind reminded her- now had a pair of crutches like her father had- and wasn't all _that_ close to anyone else. Not to mention the fact she was suspecting Carl may have a slightly creepy crush on her…

…

"Hey, I'm sorry about what happened." Morgan told Rick, pulling him off to the side of the LAV. "It's my fault, really; I told her we were attacking, and I _meant_ the squad cars, but she got all caught up in the moment and…"

"It's fine." Rick replied, patting him on the back. "Really, it's fine."

Morgan laughed. "You know; a few weeks after you made that offer to come to your prison, I took you up on it. Found the damn place a burning wreck, so I got on the train tracks and found signs leading to a place called Terminus. That was burning too, but then I got to a church and found this," He pulled out the map, "and thought I'd take that route. I found your girl- Beth- lying half dead in that parking lot with a _lot_ of fire and spent cartridges. I was just hoping finding an old friend would be less… fiery."

Then Rick laughed. "Hey, it's alright. Eugene was a liar; nobody lost anything when he went, and we had just met Gabriel and Noah. The only real loss is Tara, and _she's_ still here. Don't beat yourself up; you got Beth back and Shepard too. You know what they were probably doing to _her_, right?"

"I kind of figured something like that." Morgan replied, shaking his head. "I'm just glad we finally got them. Shepard seems a bit more easy now too."

They glanced over at the campfire; Shepard was laughing with Tyreese and Rosita while they ate what canned food they had left.

"Still," Morgan continued, "I'm sorry; I should've made it clearer to her and three people are dead because of it."

"Alright." Rick replied, patting him on the back again and walking back, realizing his old friend wasn't going to give up on his effort to apologize.

Morgan heard it first, his eyes darting over to the source of a rattling sound in the distance, triangulating the precise location of the intruder in a millisecond. Everyone's eyes darted over towards the sound, waiting to see what was going to come out.

Well, everyone except Daryl.

He had learned the hard way what happened when a problem was left unattended, and took the intruder down in a dive-tackle. It was a man.

"Where'd you come from ya' little puke?" Daryl demanded through gritted teeth, sitting on the newcomer's back and holding his hands tightly together.

"Ah, hey, quit it!" the man exclaimed. "I don't wanna hurt any of you!"

"Yeah right." Daryl retorted, spitting.

"Daryl, stop!" Beth shouted over to him, trying to calm him down. He ignored her.

"How long've you been following us, huh?" he demanded.

"Alright so I followed you in a few miles! I- I just wanna talk to whoever's in charge!"

"Why?" Rick suddenly asked, stepping up.

"I'm with a survivor group; we're just looking for new people."

Rick nodded to Daryl, and the redneck punched the new guy's lights out before he even knew what hit him.

"Daryl!" Beth exclaimed, running over to him as he tied the man up to a telephone pole. "Why'd you knock him out! He might've wanted to help us!"

That was when he remembered- she hadn't been there the last time a group tried "recruiting" new people, and Terminus was at the front of his mind again.

"Beth," Rick assured her, "we have a good reason for doing this."

"Why?" she demanded, still upset. Rick looked back at Daryl, and he just nodded.

"After the prison," Rick explained, "we found a sign on the railroad tracks leading to a place called Terminus. The signs said it was a sanctuary for all; that anyone who got there would survive. But it wasn't like that at all."

"When we got there," Maggie chimed in, "they put us in boxcars and took us out one by one. Or they would have."

"They started with me, Daryl, Bob and Glenn," Rick continued, "and four other guys who weren't with our group. Beth, they tied our mouths shut, leaned us over a trough and started slitting their throats."

"What?" Beth asked in almost a whisper, shocked that anyone would be capable of doing that.

"Like goddamn cattle!" Daryl shouted, but Rick calmed him down.

"We wouldn't've made it if Carol hadn't come in; she blew up their fuel tanks, got a whole herd in their walls. Then she started picking off the guards. We wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for her We started running through the place; they had bodies in a meatlocker; they were _eating them_."

"They took their stuff too." Carol added, peeping out of the LAV. "There was a whole room full of things; weapons, clothes, watches, _stuffed animals_…"

"God…" Beth muttered.

"We got out and found a church; that's where we met Father Gabriel. But some of those Terminus people got out; and they were _hunting_ us. They got Bob…"

"Ate his goddamn leg!" Daryl shouted, finishing the knot around their prisoner's hands. "Thank God we killed the bastards or they would've gotten Carl and Judith next!"

"So we need to be _real _careful about new people," Rick finished, "because we almost didn't make it out alive last time. You understand?"

Beth nodded, wide-eyed.

"Alright. Everybody try and get some sleep; I'll watch this guy till twelve; who wants twelve to three?

"I'll take it." Morgan replied

"I'll take three to six." Abraham volunteered.

"Come on, Beth." Daryl gestured, his arm around her, making sure she got back to their little camp safe and sound. He felt a little stupid, but he even tucked her into her sleeping bag before he went to sleep himself.

Beth didn't sleep well that night

…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Guys, I'm _super_ sorry if it seems like I've been updating erratically; my computer's had an _evil _little virus for the past week or so, so I can only punch out so much before it gets too glitchy to keep writing. Don't worry; I'm on damage control, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do chapters daily anymore, but I'll try my best. Fingers crossed!


	16. Chapter 16

He awoke abruptly to a splash of cold water on his face.

"What's your name?" the man with the beard asked him.

"Are you the leader of this group?" he asked, trying to wipe the water off but finding his hands tied.

"_What's your name_?" he asked again, more forcefully.

"Aaron."

Rick smiled. "Yeah, I'm the leader."

"What's your name?" Aaron asked.

"Rick, and _I'm _asking the questions, okay?"

"Okay." Aaron replied, a bit nervously. "I- I just wanted you to know, I don't hold this against you," He looked down at the knots, "cause we've all had to do some terrible things to make it. So, just know that."

Rick actually laughed a bit. "I sure appreciate that. Now, what do you want?"

"I'm kind of a recruiter; see, we have a military safe-zone, in Alexandria."

"Oh?" Rick was intrigued now. "How many people do you have?"

"About thirty-four, I guess." Aaron replied, shrugging. "But we need more if we're gonna survive."

"And if we… ah _shit_!" Rick muttered, hearing the unmistakable groans of walkers. A lot of them.

They were practically _pouring_ up the road, right towards their little camp.

"Everybody up now!" Rick exclaimed, running up to meet them, blasting three down right from the start, their moans blasted to silence.

"Mhmmm… go back to sleep…" Beth muttered, rolling over in her sleeping bag.

"Morgan!" Rick exclaimed, beating a particularly rotten walker's head in with the butt of his Colt Python.

Morgan was on it in a second; Rosita had the LAV's Bushmaster targeted in another moment, ripping into the walkers as they came. Most of them just disintegrated when the bullets hit them; they were very old and very bloated; but more were getting through.

One of them chose a sleeping Beth as its victim.

Beth awoke wide-eyed to a moaning, decayed monster with milky white eyes looming over her, jaws ready to end her life.

A single crossbow bolt ended its own.

"Beth!" Daryl exclaimed, getting up from his firing position, bolting over to her. "Beth! Get up!"

She didn't need to be told twice, staggering to her tired feet and running over to grab whatever weapon she could find. Carl was running past her, firing into them. More were coming from the park just off the road.

"Everybody into their cars _now_!" Rick barked, shooting another walker and falling back.

"Hey!" Aaron shouted in panic. "Untie me! Come on, man!"

"Better not be a bad guy." Glenn muttered, slashing the ropes and, in the spur of the moment, handing the newcomer a Glock, then rushing back alongside Shepard to fire into the herd.

"Hold up, Rick!" Morgan shouted. The Bushmaster was steaming hot, but at least all of the walkers were gone. Red paste covered the street before them.

Rick saw the whole thing; he marched over to Glenn. "Did you really just give him a _gun_?"

"It was in the moment." Glenn protested.

"Hey, hey!" Aaron spoke up, handing the gun back to Rick, handle first. "It's fine."

Rick looked right at him, snatching the gun from Aaron's hands and put it on his own belt.

"So, are you gonna take your chances out on those roads or are you gonna come back with me?" Aaron asked, smiling humorously, checking his watch. "You should probably make up your minds fast."

"Why the rush?" Rick asked.

"Another herd like that could be coming through here any minute, and an LAV only has so much ammo for that _cannon_ of yours. What, you probably only have another hundred or so rounds left, and that goes _fast_ in a fight." He grinned. "I wonder if I care more about your people than you do."

"You alright?" Daryl asked, sitting Beth down on a cinder block to calm her down.

"Great start to the day." She panted. "Whoo! That'll wake you up for sure!"

Daryl smiled, looking down at the ground, embarrassed. "Just glad you're okay."

"Daryl Dixon, there's _more_ to it than that, isn't there?" she asked, smiling. He looked back up at her, with that same look that had made her heart thump so fast in that funeral home. And her heart started racing again.

"We should get back on the road." Rick announced, calling everyone's attention.

"No." Michonne spoke up. "The roads aren't safe, Rick. That's the third herd we've run into heading up here and it won't be the last. Look, I don't really know if this 'safe-zone' this guy's talking about is legit, but he ain't no Governor, that's for sure. And if you won't go, _I _will."

He hadn't seen that coming.

"Me too." Maggie added, as did Glenn, Tyreese, Sasha and Tara; even Carl.

"I'll go too." Beth finished, rising to her feet. Daryl reluctantly followed her a moment later.

"Alright," Rick conceded, "you've all made your choice. Alexandria it is."

They started driving, Aaron _insisting_ that the LAV be at the back of the convoy to cover their rear, but Rick pulled him over to the side a minute, whispering very concisely into his ear "If you get _any _of my people hurt or killed,_I_ _will kill you_."

…

"I don't like it." Carol whispered to Rick, riding beside him. "I don't trust him."

"You think I do?" Rick whispered back. "It's just; _Michonne_ thinks he's honest. _Michonne_. She _hated_ the Governor more than _any _of us, we all know that. Her trust is as good as gold for me."

"Yeah, I know." Carol replied unhappily.

"What? Do you have something personal against him?" Rick asked.

She sighed, obviously stressed out. "Right after the prison, I found Tyreese with Judith, and Lizzie and Mika. We were together for a while." She sighed. "I should've seen it coming; Lizzie talked about them like they were pets; like they were still people."

"What?"

"The walkers." Carol replied, welling up a bit. "I should've known it was coming. But I didn't until it was too late. She… she killed Mika. Put a knife in her stomach, so she'd turn. Tyreese and I, we had just gotten back from hunting. And Lizzie was just… _so _enthusiastic about Mika turning, so she'd have her to play with forever. And she was gonna do the same thing to Judith too, but I…"

She trailed, off, frowning as she fought back the tears in vain.

"Hey," Rick told her assuringly, after a _long_ silence, "you didn't do anything wrong. She couldn't be around people; it's okay."

Carol pulled herself together, taking a deep breath "And now that they're gone, and Sophia; you and this group are the only family I've got left. I'll follow you straight to hell if that's what it takes."

Suddenly, the car in front of them- Abraham's- screeched to a halt, and the pissed off Army Sergeant dismounted, an M16 in his hands.

"What's going on?" Rick demanded, his own Colt Python drawn.

"I'll tell ya' what's going on!" Abraham shouted, throwing Aaron onto the ground and then going into the bushes to drag out another man with a recording device in his hands. "This puke's got a spy!"


	17. Chapter 17

"Wait! Wait!" Aaron pleaded as Abraham threw him and the other man to the ground. "Wait! He's with me!"

"Yeah, I figured!" Abraham raged, spitting on him and kicking him hard in the gut.

"Wait a minute, Abe." Rosita calmed, putting her hand on his shoulder assuringly, turning down to Aaron. "Why didn't you tell us that before?"

"He's my backup!" Aaron insisted. "In case you guys tried…"

"Tried _what_?" Daryl asked coldly, making sure to keep between these two and Beth.

"I… I dunno. Killing me, or something!"

"Let 'em go." Abraham said suddenly in a low voice, lowering his gun.

"What?" Rick demanded, keeping his sights trained on them.

"I get why they did it; hell, I would've done the same thing in Afghanistan; had someone just behind me to call for air support if I needed it."

"But…"

"Trust me." Abraham replied. "If they wanted to kill us, they probably would've done it already; unless they're like Terminus."

"What's that?" Shepard spoke up.

"Tell ya' later."

"I swear, if one more person comes out of there…" Maggie warned, switching her safety off.

"H-He's the only one! Please!" Aaron pleaded, throwing his hands up in terror.

"What's your name?" Rick asked.

"Eric." He replied plainly, much more calm than Aaron.

"And how'd you know we were coming through here, Eric?"

In reply, Eric pulled up a device that looked almost like a cell phone. "Sonic detector." He informed. "I could hear you guys coming from a mile off."

Rick turned to Abraham; the sergeant simply nodded.

"Alright," Rick announced, rising to his feet, "let's move out."

Everyone went back to their vehicles, Rick pulling Abraham off to the side just as he was climbing into his truck.

"Why do you trust these guys?" he demanded in a quieted voice.

Abraham sighed. "Before Eugene, I could pick out any liar on Earth when I seen him. Frickin' living lie detector. They ain't lyin'."

"Listen to me Abraham," Rick warned, "I've been through a lot since this all started; I've been to other 'safe-zones' alright? If these two try anything funny, you shoot them in the head; don't think twice, you hear me? Cause if something seems too good to be true, it is."

…

"What's wrong?" Daryl asked. He, Beth and Shepard were all in the LAV, with Morgan driving and Carol and Tara unconscious in the back. Beth had started making Tara a peg-leg so she wouldn't have to use crutches when she woke up, and was hoping to hell this safe-zone might have a prosthetic for her.

"Nothing." Beth replied, shaking her head.

"Come on," Daryl insisted, "I know you; _something's_ wrong."

Beth sighed. "I just… they _ate_ people?"

It was Daryl's turn to shake his head. "Yup. Seen it with my own eyes."

"So that's why Rick's acting like that."

"Like what?"

"Why he's being so strict with new people."

"Well, wouldn't you be?"

"No, don't get me wrong; I think it makes him a good leader." She frowned, thinking about the horror of that fate. "I just can't believe people could do that."

"We got 'em." Daryl assured, putting his arm around her as she leaned in close to him.

"How?"

"Well…" he trailed off, telling her the whole story in gruesome detail; from the initial "welcoming" by Mary to the very, _very_ bloody end of the Termites in Father Gabriel's church. She grinned a vicious, satisfied grin at Carol's rescue of them; cried at Bob's terrible fate; was thoroughly shocked by the Termites' brutal end. Daryl was indifferent throughout; he didn't even care.

"At least you're okay." Beth said after a long silence.

"We gotta stop." Morgan announced, pulling over as he noticed the other cars stopping in his camera. "Something's up."

"There's fire in the sky." Beth replied, looking through the gunner's camera.

"Ain't no fire." Morgan laughed, poking his head out of the hatch. "They're flares!"

"Some of the runners are in trouble." Aaron announced, running up. They were on a bridge, just outside of Washington DC; the Washington Monument stood proud in the distance. Disturbingly, right below them was an entire _swarm_ of walkers.

"You sure this safe-zone of yours is safe?" Daryl asked, jumping down.

"Trust me; the safe-zone's _fine_; I'm not sure about our runners, though."

"We gotta go get them." Eric announced.

"No, I don't want you out of my sight." Rick replied in a warning tone. He still didn't trust anyone new; hell, he was still getting used to Abraham!

"I'll go." Morgan offered, leaning out of the LAV's turret. "I'm the only one besides maybe Abraham that can drive this thing, and we might need some heavy firepower down there." He looked down nervously at the swarm of walkers below them, moaning and groaning hungrily.

"No; that LAV is the only vehicle we've got that can hold Carol and Tara while they're recovering." Rick replied.

"Fine; I'm going though, with or without the tank." Morgan replied impatiently.

"Me too." Abraham added, taking up his M16.

"Alright," Rick replied, hopping into the truck, "and Aaron; you're with us. Daryl, you stay back with everyone else. Let's roll."

…

"We're gonna have to move real quick so we don't get swarmed."

Aaron's observation came right after the trio saw another large herd of walkers on Virginia Avenue, entering the city from the west. Eugene was wrong; Washington D.C. was just as desolate and destroyed as every other city they had been too; the Capitol building loomed large in the distance, scorch marks on its formerly snowy white facade. Three M1 Abrams tanks laid abandoned in front of the ruined seat of American power; dozens of walker corpses lay in front of the ruined vehicles.

"There!" Abraham exclaimed, swerving around a heap of corpses to get to two obviously alive men. They were both on the ground; one obviously injured.

"Heath?" Aaron asked, dismounting to see his African American friend from the safe-zone.

"Aaron!" he exclaimed, lifting the other man under his shoulders and dragging him over to the truck.

"What the hell happened?" Aaron demanded.

"Scott missed a jump; busted his damn leg."

"Will he live?" Rick asked. Heath looked up at him coldly. "If it's infected?"

"Man, this guy's got Alex Davidson written all over him." Heath grumbled, putting Scott in the flatbed.

"Ignore him." Aaron replied distastefully. "We've got three doctors in Alexandria, and one's a surgeon; he'll live."

"Shit." Abraham muttered, seeing a bunch of walkers approaching them. He shot five from a distance, forced to start bashing in the others with the butt of his rifle as they closed in on the truck. Morgan was right beside him, right in the thick of things with his SIG P226.

Suddenly, like the cavalry of old, a quartet of motorcycles tore ahead of them in V-formation, their riders dismounting and ripping into the walkers with multiple assault rifles, tearing them to pieces.

"Tobin, am I glad to see you!" Heath exclaimed, rushing up to his friend.

"They're with us." Aaron whispered to Rick.

"Alright, who the hell are these guys?" Tobin asked.

"Your man here got us to go with him to your safe-zone." Abraham replied, pointing to Aaron. "We've just gotta go get our people."

"Alright, we'll follow you." Tobin replied, telling the rest of his squad.

…

"I don't like it; it's been too long." Rosita announced in a worried voice. "They should be back by now."

"It's only been an hour." Michonne replied, holding her Katana to the ground. "Don't worry; they're gonna be fine."

Just then, the truck reappeared on the far side of the bridge, with four motorcycles riding close behind them.

"Thank God." Rosita muttered, running up to Abraham and embracing him.

"Give us an hour, alright?" Aaron told Tobin. "And tell the docs about Scott's leg, alright?"

"You got it." Tobin replied, riding off with his three wingmen.

…

The big walls of the safe-zone looked rather foreboding as the group closed in; Aaron had made Morgan keep the LAV in the back with its turret facing backwards, just in case.

"Think it's gonna be nice?" Beth asked.

"I sure hope so." Maggie replied.

Daryl shrugged.

"As long as it ain't Woodbury or Terminus, I'll take it." Sasha laughed.

Aaron gave a signal to the guard tower, and the gates started to open. Rick went up and glanced through the growing opening as the gates slowly swung open.

"Can you see what's in there?" Carl asked as his father peered in.

Rick turned back and grinned.


	18. The Guest Reviews Are Making Me Laugh

Hokay, so this "chapter" isn't really even a chapter, but I just had to do it. I've been getting a substantial number of guest reviews on here, which, as you all probably know, can't be replied to. However, most of them made me laugh (yes, I laugh in the face of the critics), so I'll share them all with you... even though you can just click on the reviews tab to read them anyway. Cheers!

"I didn't care about Beth's death. I was like DING DONG THE B*** IS DEAD. Beth was just so annoying! Same with Dawn."

"There is no need to rage over Beth's death. Damn. There was a reason. Emily Kinney is getting big in her music career, and she couldn't be on the damn show. Chill the f*** out. I know her death was a little rushed, but there is a reason behind it. Have fun with this, whatever it is."

"Wow! Great writing. If only YOU were the writer for TWD. Cause they don't know shit about what keeps viewers watching... Killing Beth off was soooo stupid. I'm still furious about it. Still don't know if I will continue watching the show. But your story has fed my need for how it should have gone. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Can't wait til next update..."

"As soon as I read that he had a bat, terror overcame me. I was dreading it'd be him. This whole story's so good, I'm entirely too invested."

"You know, there's a reason Maggie left Beth's name off those signs and it's right here in this chapter." (chapter 3)

"Love it update soon"

"Love it please keep updating"

"Beth had to die for Maggie's story arc to happen. In the comics all of Maggie's family die. Gimple did say he would be sticking closer to the comics. They had to kill a main character, so they made Beth a main character by putting her with Daryl, making her more popular. I loved Beth, I really did but I knew her days were numbered from 4b. Sorry to say but the petition is pointless, they've filmed 5b. This was all planned long ago."

"Daryl needs Beth like a hole in the head."

"Oh man, I love your description of this story. Please keep writing Bethyl fanfiction!"

"Beth was a good character - ripe for development - but I hated her for Daryl so I'm REALLY glad they killed her off. He needs a woman, not a child."


	19. Chapter 19

"Alright," Aaron began, walking ahead of everyone else, turning back to face them, "so here's what's gonna happen; we're gonna take yas' one at a time to interview you, alright?"

"Why?" Daryl asked. They were walking through the community towards what looked like a town hall; it seemed too good to be true.

"What, didn't _you _have a system for bringing new people into your group?" Aaron quipped, looking down at Carl. "Hey champ; don't look so down. You'll make new friends here; there's a lot of families."

"He's right." Rick replied, smiling down at his son and looking over at a playground to see dozens of kids laughing and playing. None of them had seen that in a _long_ while.

"What's wrong?" Aaron asked, seeing Rick looking around.

"Nothing; just haven't seen happy kids in a while." He turned to face him. "Didn't think I'd _ever _see that again."

"Well," Aaron sighed, "for the most part, we've kept it like it was before in here." He stopped, looking at a single-story house on the right. "Well, Douglas is ready to see you now."

"Douglas?"

"He's, well, for lack of a better word, our leader. We look to him for guidance; he makes sure everyone's pulling their weight. Just answer him honestly even if you feel like you shouldn't and you'll be just fine. It's that house right there." He pointed back to the house.

"Alright." Rick replied, walking up the driveway.

The house was remarkably well maintained; he hadn't seen that in a long time either. The closest he remembered was that house he, Carl and Michonne had scavenged before Joe and his group had come along, but even that wasn't as well kept as this one. He slowly opened the front door, peering his head in.

"Hello?" he inquired. "Hello? Not sure if I should just come in? Douglas?"

"I know, right?" Rick spun around to face the speaker. "Weird being in a house after all this time that _isn't_ looted or burned."

Douglas was much older than Rick; completely bald, but he did have a white beard and mustache. He wore a pair of denim jeans, with a plaid long-sleeve shirt.

"I'm Douglas Monroe." he greeted. "It's good to meet you."

"Rick Grimes."

"Aaron says good things about you and your people, Rick." Douglas went on, shaking his hand.

Rick chuckled. "I'll have to thank him for that." He shook his head. "What exactly am I here for?"

"To talk." Monroe grinned. "That's all. Please, have a seat."

Rick sat down at the kitchen table as Douglas began his briefing.

"Make no mistake, what _really_ decides if you get to live here or not depends on what Aaron and Eric see before they even contact you. Observe how you act when you don't think you're being watched; spot the little red flags. If you're travelling with women and children, how do you treat them? Are you looking for food or drugs? How do you treat each other? Simple things, yes, but easy to spot. It's astonishing how easy it is to read people just be observing them like Aaron has. The things he's seen…" He trailed off. "Now, myself, if you watched the news religiously you might know who I am. Congressman Douglas Monroe, representative from the Second District of Ohio."

"Really?" Rick asked. Congressman clicked in his subconscious awful close to "governor."

"Yep. Didn't look like this though; I can't _stand_ dirty hair, and I couldn't wash it, so I cut it all off. Always wanted a goatee, but that wouldn't really make me look all that credible on Capitol Hill, but now, there's no reason I can't." He paused. "I'm sorry, I've been known to ramble; politicians like to talk a lot. I just want us to get to know each other."

It's fine." Rick replied. "If you were saying less, I'd be asking questions. If we're gonna live here, I wanna know everything I can about everyone here."

Douglas smiled with respect. "Good answer. You should wanna know everything about us. Aaron was right about you; smart man " He went on. "This community's been up since the beginning of things. I wasn't always here, though; no, I was out in the open for about three months. Had to kill two men- not walkers, mind you- actual, living men. You don't seem to troubled by that."

"I assume it needed to be done." Rick replied.

"It most certainly did." Douglas replied in a low voice, staring off into the distance. "I wanna tell you a story. Before the world spiralled down into chaos, before the dead started walking, I read a news article on the internet. It's usually the sort of thing I try and avoid. Being a father, I hate stories of kids getting hurt. It really tears me up. But you know how it is- you can't not listen when the news starts- and after you have kids, those stories spring out of the white noise- you can't help but hear them. The parents who shake their kids, the children left in the car on a hot summer day, babies left in trash cans- it's _horrible_. But this one, the one I saw on the internet, it still haunts me even today.

"A man in Florida- Fort Lauderdale, if I remember correctly- was on some kind of drug. I can't remember which- some type of hallucinogen, I would assume. While under the influence of these drugs, he…" Douglas trailed off, his voice shaking, "he _ate_ his four year old son's eyeballs. Just ate them right out of his head.

"Aside from the story in general being just… _horrific_, the thing that really stuck with me that sends shivers down my spine to this very day, was what the son said afterwards: 'Daddy ate my eyes.' No anger, no fear, just 'Daddy ate my eyes.' He says it as if he believes it's something normal, that happens to _everyone_. Four years old. The poor boy doesn't know any different.

"Talking about it now, it still makes me uncomfortable. The day I read the story, I was _wrecked_. I accomplished very little that day. I just couldn't stop thinking about that story, about that poor little boy. I can't stop myself from filling in the blanks of the story… the details not told but _implied_. I picture the father, placing his hands on either side of his son's head- I think about what would be going through that boy's mind at the time. He wouldn't be scared, this is his dad; he would have no clue what to expect. This was his father for Christ's sake- he wouldn't immediately assume the man was going to hurt him. The mechanics of it still haunt me. Is it easy to just suck a person's eyeball right out of their head? Can it be done quickly? How much time passed between the removal of each eye? All questions I desperately don't want to know the answer to but can't stop myself from asking.

"Children… they're helpless; they can't defend themselves. They rely on _us_ for that; their parents. That's what we're here for. Hurting your own child… it's such a betrayal. The boy is _blind_ now, his life forever changed because of his asshole father. This insane prick should never have had a child. I think about what he's done to his kid.

His eyes narrowed; his nostrils flared and he bared his teeth in unbridled rage as he continued. "Even then, before all this, I thought about what this monster had done to his own flesh and blood, and I thought to myself, if I could get away with it, I would _kill_ this man for what he's done."

There was a long, long silence.

"I don't tell that story to offend you," Douglas went on in a much calmer voice, "I know you have a young son. The point is that there is _evil_ in the world, always was, long before it came in the undead variety. If anything, things only got _worse_ after the collapse. People who were keeping themselves in check, living by society's rules… they no longer had any checks and balances. The crazy, free to roam unchecked. A world gone _mad_. And, somehow, you and your people survived out there for _how _long?"

"Almost two years." Rick replied, somewhat proudly.

"Remarkable." Douglas sighed. "The fact of the matter, Rick, is that we _need_ more people like you. Aside from the knowledge of the outside world you have that we desperately need, you're also more well equipped to deal with, well, anything."

"What do you want me to say?" Rick asked.

"I want you to tell me what you did for a living before all this. That's something, I don't know. It helps us decide what you'd be best for here in the community; how you'd be of best use."

"I was a police officer." Rick replied.

"Well that cinches it." Douglas smiled. "I was already thinking along those lines, but yeah, that's made up my mind. You're our constable."

"_Constable_?"

"I always preferred that word to all the others- police officer, cop. You are what you were before. It's perfect. Adding your group to the mix, that'll put us over sixty, or at least close to it. With that many people here, there's bound to be an occasional problem to deal with; people fight, it's in our nature. We need someone with authority."

"That's how it works?" Rick questioned. "You say what we do and we do it?"

"No, it's open to discussion. How it works, Rick, is we have this community here and it's _safe_. There are strong walls on all sides; it's a good place to live. But that comes at a price. It takes a lot of work to maintain this, to keep everyone safe and fed, to keep the community going. Everyone has to do their part. Everyone has to _work_. And so, I do my best to try and place people in the work they're both best and, hopefully, find the most rewarding. I assume you enjoyed being a police officer?"

"Don't get me wrong, I was just asking a question. Constable is _fine_."

"Good. The other part of our deal is that aside from being fed and protected, you get your own place to live. The current expansion of the wall is a few weeks away, and there are weeks of clean-up and repair after that, so we don't have a lot of houses available. Some of you may have to _share_ for the time being."

"With what we're coming from, I don't think there'll be many complaints."

"Excellent." Douglas rose to his feet, planting his hands on the table. "Well, Rick, that will be all. We're done."

"Now, there'll be a tour, and some kind of meet and greet around dinner time. And home assignment. You and your people have a big day ahead of you. I'd like to talk to a few more of them today as time permits."

"That all sounds fine, Douglas." Rick smiled.

Douglas shook his hand again.

"Welcome to our community."

"Thank-you for having us."

Rick walked back outside, into the bright morning light.

"Told you it'd be no big deal." Aaron told him as he walked out.

"Yeah, he seems like a nice enough guy." Rick replied. "He wants me to send someone else in there to talk. Any takers?"

"I-I'll go." Beth replied, starting forward despite Daryl's protesting looks.

Aaron walked up to Rick. "House across the street's opened up to new arrivals; some of your friends are in there taking showers. Might want to get in on that before the hot water runs out."

"Where's Carl?" Rick demanded, suddenly panicking. "Where's my son!?"

"Whoa, Rick, calm down. He's playing with the other kids, alright? He's fine."

Rick looked over to see Carl tossing a football around with some other kids, like he would have back before everything happened.

"Oh, okay." Rick replied, somewhat embarrassed. "You said working showers?"

…

"Please, have a seat. My name is Douglas Monroe. It's good to meet you…"

"Beth."

"It's good to meet you Beth."

She sat down at the table, looking up abruptly when she felt like he was staring at her intently; the feeling passed, though.

"So, what was it you did before? What kind of job did you have?"

"Well, uh, nothing." Beth replied awkwardly. "I was only sixteen when this all started. I lived on my daddy's farm in Georgia."

"Oh?" Douglas asked, leaning in. "Are you single?"

"_Excuse me?_"

He leaned back abruptly, putting his hands up. "Oh, I'm sorry, don't misunderstand; that's something I ask everyone; it helps us plan the housing. So?"

"Well," she replied nervously, "I am right now; but I'm not sure if I will be much longer."

...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Guys, seriously, that eyeball scene was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DISGUSTING TO WRITE, and I swear to God I didn't come up with that myself; it's almost literally taken word for word from the comics. I'm not _that _fucking messed up! Here's a youtube link in case you don't believe me (relax, it's frames from the comics): watch?v=iUPD9uCZUmI


End file.
